


Leave Me Alone, Let Me Be

by willowbilly



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Sadly Stopped Being Canon Compliant When New Stuff Kept Coming Out, Angst and Humor, At least I think that's where this is going, Banter, Borderline Personality Disorder, Canon Disabled Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Companionable Snark, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depression, Developing Relationship(s), Dissociation, Domestic Fluff, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Homelessness, Human Disaster Matt Murdock, Hurt/Comfort, I have no idea, Illnesses, Improbably Respectful and Articulate Conversations About Emotions, Insecurity, Intervention, Introspection, Isolation, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Matt Murdock Needs a Hug, Multi, OT4, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Season/Series 02, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Roman Catholicism, Romantic Comedy?, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, Suicidal Ideation, THERE WILL BE HUGS, The Hashing Out of Issues, Yup that is definitely where I'm going now, everybody needs a hug, hallelujah!, happened, implied ot4 - Freeform, in fact, it is totally confirmed, it just
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-06-09 23:31:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 64,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6928831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willowbilly/pseuds/willowbilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of Elektra's death and Matt Murdock's social isolation the Devil has been ceaseless in his crusade, to the point where he's barely a step away from indulging his death wish. His concerned colleague the Punisher notices. Karen is informed. Foggy is contacted. And Foggy proceeds to call an emergency meeting because like <em>hell</em> are any of them going to let this slide, Matt, like <em>actual freaking hell</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It made the news because how the hell could it not? Over twenty hostages and something like fifty ninjas, fifty freaking _ninjas_ , with a few vigilantes thrown in on a dramatic rooftop showdown for good measure, and _boom_. The story of the goddamn century, at least for now.

The phantom sensations of Daredevil’s suit scraping roughly beneath her fingers and the trembling caress of his glove, light, so light against the side of her face, lingers far after she’s burst out of the grimy warehouse doors and into the cool night air of the city, alive with dank wind and alight with sirens, wailing fit to drown out the cries of the terrified flood of fleeing people rushing headlong towards the tenuous safety of the twitchy police barrier.

The funny thing is, she finds it funny that they’re scared. Funny-odd, not funny-ha-ha. She’s always the one who’s frightened. Frightened out of her wits, out of her mind. Out of her humanity.

 _There’s a gun on the table. Then in her hand. She doesn’t call his bluff so much as she panics, the fear building until it reaches a breaking point, a snap judgment for self-preservation surging to the fore, base survival winning out_.

She’s an animal of a slightly different stripe lost amongst the crowd, a coral snake among non-deadly kingsnakes. Sure, they _all_ look dangerous at first glance, mobs of any sort always do, but look _closer_. And then closer again. Red to yellow, kill a fellow; red to black, it venom lacks.

 _Any shitstorm you’re not a part of?_ Brett asked her as she loped towards him, even in the midst of that mess managing to spare a moment for one of his trademark sardonic remarks, concern overlaid by wry disbelief.

Karen remembers that later, after she’s once more worked her way through police procedure, given her statement, shrugged off the orange shock blanket they tried to drape around her shoulders. The Devil’s tenderness, crackling with familiarity as they reached for each other; overhead gunshots splitting through the chaos, leading her eye to the Punisher’s silhouette stationed far above, a poised menace hewn from stone with death’s face emblazoned over body armor. Brett, asking: _Any shitstorm you’re not a part of?_

 _No,_ she thinks to herself, raw and rueful, _seems there isn’t_.

She lets herself relive it, sitting in her apartment with its leftover crime scene tape in the doorway and dampness whistling in through the bullet holes gracing her wall, the television replaying the same video clips over and over as serious talking heads lay everything out and pick it all apart. Crime syndicates, ninjas, lingering effects of an extraterrestrial invasion, S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra, the Avengers and how their brand of justice may have inspired the vigilantes, the vigilantes in turn inspiring bloodbaths, blah blah blah. Simultaneously trying to reassure, to claim that everything has always gotten better before, we will overcome que sera sera et cetera, even as they circle back again and again to the details in all their gory glory. Trying to make sense of it all.

At one point there’s a report of an ongoing house fire. It's almost a side note but they still show the neighborhood with the firefighters on scene, dousing the last of the blaze smoldering in a framework of charcoal beams and collapsed debris, and she recognizes the house, the hallways she'd crept through with all its ghosts smiling from framed photographs now gone up in flames.

Karen raises the cold, sweating bottle of vodka to her lips, the slender glass neck slippery in her hand, smeared with a murderer’s fingerprints.

 

~~~

 

Matt tells her he’s Daredevil. Tells her of enhanced senses, a past checkered with isolation and with people who became his whole world before they invariably left him, of demons within him craving violent justice that he can only exorcise through appeasement, through offerings of blood, of busted knuckles and beaten foes.

Karen breathes. In and out, calm, pieces of the puzzle clicking into place, making whole a mosaic she didn’t know was incomplete.

He tells her the entire story. And then she tells him she needs some time. To think. To process.

He’s far too stoic about it as he carefully rewraps the mask with its glitteringly dark eyepieces into the plain brown paper bag, the paper crinkling and creasing as he crumples it around to obscure the shape, as he says that he understands, that he’ll give her as much space and time as she needs. He surely feels more than he’s letting on, disappointment, perhaps, or maybe even grief, but he’s always hidden things from her. Lied to her. It’s to be expected.

She inhales sharply as he reaches for the door handle of their empty office and he turns, eyebrows raised in question, the door swinging only half open, but she can’t find anything to say. He’s offered up the most vulnerable parts of himself, the ugliest, innermost secrets, he’s finally bared his soul to her of his own free will, and when she gropes for accusations or apologies she finds only empty silence.

Matt isn’t the only liar in the room, after all.

She shakes her head and doesn’t narrate the motion for him because she knows now that it would be unnecessary to do so. His eyebrows lower and the corner of his mouth quirks up, in acknowledgment, not amusement, and with a sort of semi-nod, his dark, tousled head dipping and the color of his shades going from red as the spilled blood in a window of stained glass to a flash of reflected white light to red again, he is out the door, and Karen is left, once more, alone.

 

~~~

 

“What part of ‘you’re dead to me’ did you not understand, Frank,” Karen says to him flatly.

Frank, crouching in order to finish zip-tying the wrists of the unconscious would-be purse-snatcher, speaks with his back still turned. “You’re welcome.” Bent a little forward with his head bowed to the task and his broad shoulders relaxed, the hem of his long coat pooled on the ground around him and his movements efficient but unhurried, he looks like a satiated predator lingering to pick over the bones of its prey.

“I can take care of myself.”

“An’ I believe that. Just needed to talk to you and thought this seemed as good an excuse as any to open a dialogue, is all.”

At least the criminal’s alive, though that’s probably because Frank’s trying to be considerate of Karen’s distaste for decisive slaughter, and because the guy only tried to grab her bag and run rather than stick a weapon in her face and demand money. Or anything worse.

Deep down Karen can’t quite shake the trust she feels in Frank’s presence, her gut instinct unwavering in its conviction that for all his savagery, Frank Castle is there because he has a code of honor, because he cares for her, because he wants to keep her safe.

Still.

“You’ve been _stalking_ me?”

“Following.” Frank stands, his coat unfurling to hang down to the backs of his knees. “Just for tonight, for your protection. Wouldn’t want a lady to go around without a proper escort.”

“Oh, of _course not_ , that makes total sense. I guess I’ll hold off on that restraining order for now, then.”

He snorts and nudges the petty thief with the steel-tipped toe of his boot. “Nah, this really was mostly chance. I came to talk with you ‘bout Red.”

Karen finally, belatedly, feels the first flutters of anxiety ignite within her, and it's ridiculous that this, of all things, is what triggers it. “Daredevil?”

“That’s the one.”

She jams her can of mace back in her jacket pocket and crosses her arms. “Why would I care about Daredevil? At all? He has absolutely nothing to do with me.”

Frank turns to fix her with an incredulous look. “Really? That's what you're goin' with?”

“Yes.” Karen nods, trying not to fidget or purse her lips. “Yes, it is.”

He snorts again, shakes his head disbelievingly and looks into the distance for a moment, mouthing something to himself before sighing deeply and meeting her eyes once more. “And how do you feel about your former employer and boyfriend, huh? A certain mister Matthew 'Daredevil' Murdock?”

She flushes angrily. “We decided to not _label_ our relationship.” After an extended glare the penny drops. Loudly. “Wait, Matt's not— you— what are you even _talking about—”_

“I can tell you know, and now you know I know, so let's cut the bullshit and move this right along,” he interrupts, supremely unimpressed.

“What— you recognized him? In the courtroom? During  _your very important, critical trial?"_

Frank lifts his eyebrows. “Same voice, body type, posture, way of arguing, that chip on his shoulder... I may not be the sharpest tool in the box but I'm not a complete imbecile, ma'am.” He pauses a beat before adding, in very poor taste, “Don't happen to be blind as a bat, neither.”

Karen sputters. He ducks his head and grins, an expression which seems oddly boyish on his face. Maybe because it makes her see Frank rather than the mass-murdering psycho Punisher. Just Frank, the man who took his shitty diner coffee black and thanked the waitress with genuine charm when she checked in on them, the man who played a CD of a stupid song in her car when she'd been held hostage and on her way to her own back-alley execution so she'd know he was there to help her, the man she knows will be nothing but honest to her.

Even if he omits a few little things at times. Like imminent diner gunfights for which she serves as bait.

Yeah.

For the most part, though, she's... not that angry at him any more. The bulk of it just gone, the grudge worn away like a stone eroded by water, all rounded edges even though the hurt is still there, as if when she'd screamed that ultimatum at him it had ripped something out with it and there's an aching hollow left sitting empty in her chest, letting in a draft which whistles in her glass-flute bones. She's always been so breakable, somehow. And yet here she is. Unbroken.

What a fucking mystery.

“Fine then,” she says. She uncrosses her arms. Recrosses them. Thinks of ways to get this encounter over with. “What about Matt?”

“You heard from him lately?”

She waits to see if anything else is forthcoming, but that seems to actually be it. “No,” she says, cautiously. “We, uh, haven't been... talking.” She'd sent an email to Foggy, after Matt told her, comprised of a single sentence: _I know about Matt._ Vague enough not to incriminate anyone over an unsecured line, because that's what she has to worry about in her correspondence now, apparently. 

Foggy had written back a week later at two in the morning: _I'm sorry._ Nothing else.

And that was that. 

Frank's face hardens into something just short of a scowl, grave and closed-off. “Right,” he says, and he starts angling away, making as if to stride off into the dark and gloomy shadows of his tragic crusade without so much as an explanation or a by-your-leave.

“Hey,” she snaps, and without thinking she's stepped forward and reached up to grab his shoulder. The thick leather is cold and a little gritty under her hand. She digs her nails in. “No, you can't go without a little elaboration, here. What's going on?” She swallows as something occurs to her, her throat tightening. “Is... Matt's okay, right?”

Frank relents, shifting back onto his heels and turning towards her. He's always faced her squarely, eye-to-eye, so that they could regard each other as equals. Usually she appreciates it but right now his forthright seriousness fills her with foreboding.

“He's been reckless,” Frank says, and Karen blinks but holds her peace, sensing him taking in a breath, ordering his thoughts. “Been putting himself in unnecessary danger, takin' more'n more risks. Pushing himself. He's out every night and most days, too. Showin' up in, in the broad damn daylight like he's got nothing to lose. Probably you've seen all the reports of his activity, people've been goin' wild.” She nods. She's _in_ the news industry; of course she's seen. “I don't think he's taking care of himself. Eating, sleeping.” And now Frank flicks his eyes away from hers, averting his vaguely troubled gaze as though focused on a twinge of pain. “Thing is, I've seen this before. He keeps this up, he's. He's gonna get himself killed.”

The silence swells, blocking up the alleyway more solidly than the nighttime shadows ever could.

She hears Frank inhale, air hissing through clenched teeth as he reaches up to rub the back of his head, chin dipping down. She can feel her pulse in her neck, fluttering like it wants to burst free in a flurry of vermilion butterfly wings. She realizes she's lifted her hand to her throat and curls it into a fist, pressing it to her chest as though she can push it through her rib cage, take her rabbit-swift heart in hand, and squeeze it into a more sedate and even beat.

“Are you saying he's suicidal?” she asks, steadily, but very, very softly.

Frank huffs and throws his head back, brusquely swinging his arm out in a throwing-away, hell-if-I-know gesture.

Karen holds the possibility in her mind, turning it this way and that as though to admire the facets of a cut gem, and nods as she lets it sink in, not in acceptance, but in consideration. “All right,” she says, calm and detached. “All right. I'm calling him.”

“Right now? Here?” Frank says, but she's already fishing her phone from her purse and walking deeper into the alley. He trails behind as she punches in the number, holds it to her ear like hope being nurtured.

“He's not gonna answer,” Frank is saying, ever the pessimist, but she can't hear him over the automated voice telling her that the number she's dialed no longer exists. She hangs up halfway through, numb. Double checks to make sure she hasn't made a mistake.

She hasn't.

“What?” Frank asks. She shakes her head and calls Foggy.

It rings for what seems like forever before it's picked up, a fumbling sound giving way to an exhausted, half-yawned _"Yeah? I mean, hello, Nelson here."_

She stops holding her breath, releasing it in a shaky rush, right into the microphone. “Foggy,  _hi,"_ she says, and thinks that it doesn't even sound like there are tears in her eyes. 

_"Wh—_ _Karen! It's past my bedtime. I mean, not that I'm not happy you called. I mean—_ _fancy hearing from you! How are you?"_ He waits a moment, and Karen laughs a little, but doesn't know what to say. _"Karen?"_ he asks hesitantly, sounding much more awake and aware, though no less awkward.  _"You okay there?"_

“Yeah,” she says quickly. “Yeah, I'm fine. Just... have you heard from Matt? Lately?”

_"No,"_ Foggy says. There's another uncomfortably long moment.  _"Should I have?"_

“Uh, I can't seem to reach him. His usual number's, well, canceled?”

_"I have his secret emergency untraceable burner number,"_ Foggy says, in his lawer-like, I-now-have-a-task-and-can-therefore-get-shit-done tone.  _"Wait a second, okay? I'm going to put you on hold."_

“'Kay,” Karen whispers, and he's gone.

Frank shifts behind her and she turns to look at him. He's meeting her eyes again, but she can't read what's in them. The silence presses in, stifling. Her fingers creak around her phone, stiff. Cars honk in the distance and the mugger at the mouth of the alley groans but subsides again, stays down.

_"He's not answering his super-secret cell,"_ Foggy says the second he returns, abrupt and no-nonsense and with worry so palpable Karen can feel it prickling through the speakers.  _"I tried like five times and he's definitely ignoring me or he's maybe dead. Oh god, is he dead? Karen? Please tell me he's not dead before I start hyperventilating in your ear or have a panic attack or something equally ugly for everyone involved. Please."_

“He's not dead, Foggy.”

Foggy mutters something like  _Oh thank god_ and drops the phone, judging by the noise. He immediately gets it back up to his face and demands,  _"But...?"_

“He might be soon.”

This time he swears and there's a crash, as though he's walked into a coffee table, followed by some more vitriolic, heartfelt cursing. After a few enraged seconds of heavy breathing he returns to say,  _"Okay, I'm calm. I'm calm."_

Karen continues, “I talked with Frank—”

_"I take it back, I am_ so _not calm again—”_

“—and he says Matt's been acting... rash.”

Frank gives her a grim yet dubious look just short of outright disapproval.

Foggy snorts mirthlessly.  _"Yeah, what else is new?"_

“Suicidal tendencies,” Karen states.

There is dead quiet. After an apparent eternity Foggy says, very carefully and inadequately,  _"Ah."_

Then in a tone which brooks no dispute he adds,  _"I am coming over right now. Where are you?"_

“A random alleyway,” Karen says.

_"Okay, well, I'm coming over to your apartment. Meet me there. Address?"_

“Frank is sitting in on any Matt-related meetings we're having, and that's non-negotiable,” Karen warns, fixing Frank with a meaningful glare. “He's the one who brought this to me and he's going to help  _fix it."_

Frank seems a little perplexed, his head lowered as he glanced up sharply from under a furrowed brow, but he's not scoffing at her so she'll take it as a win.

_"Yeah, the Punisher, whatever, no big deal. I'll freak out later. Definitely freaking out. But later. Again: address?"_

She's overcome by a surge of uncomplicated, grateful affection for Foggy, the first real friend she ever made in this godforsaken city and the best, and finds herself blinking back tears once more for an entirely different reason than that of before. She gives him the address.

 

~~~

 

Foggy's pacing around outside her building by the time they make it.

“You took an actual taxi?” she asks as she jogs up to him.

“Yeah, well, cushy job, money to burn, emergency Matt intervention to stage—” He's shrugging when Frank suddenly melts out of the shadows behind Karen, and Foggy turns a flinch of surprise into an entirely unconvincing stretch and yawn. “Boy, it's late,” he says to Frank, who makes no response other than a cold, blank stare. Foggy chuckles nervously and tries to signal Karen for help using only his very worried eyebrows. 

“Be nice,” she admonishes, shoving Frank's shoulder. She might as well have shoved a brick wall for all she moves him, but he sighs in acquiescence and makes a show of looking aimlessly away as though minding his own business and being utterly non-murdery. 

_"Thank you,"_ Foggy whisper-shouts, none too subtly. She resists the urge to bury her face in her hands and instead leads them inside and up the stairs. They fall into line like a pair of baby ducks, Frank taking the rear like a particularly silent, purposeful duckling with a tragic backstory and a lot of firepower hidden about his person, and Foggy like a more pacifistic, pudgy duckling who's extremely suspicious of the one behind him. 

Karen fumbles her key into the lock, turns it, and is swinging open her door when she's abruptly yanked back into the hallway and thrown down by Frank, who sweeps forward into a roll which ends with him ducked behind her couch inside, having conjured some sort of freaking  _high powered rifle_ and trained it over the couch's backrest at what must be the armchair opposite. She can just see him through the gap, hunkered down on her stomach as she is on the grungy carpet. Beside her Foggy's barely had time to startle, swallow an epithet, and belatedly retreat to the wall off to the side of the door where he slides down and covers his head. They're both tense in anticipation of violence, of some sort of gunfight, ready for bullets to whiz past or possibly into them, when Frank suddenly relaxes out of his stance, straightening up with an earnest, irritated, “What the  _fuck,_ Red?” 

“Hi, Frank,” Matt replies from inside Karen's apartment. From the armchair Frank had until a second ago been targeting. 

Foggy lets out a gasp and climbs unsteadily to his feet with the aid of the wall, offering a hand to help Karen up as well. She accepts it, feeling shaky and increasingly annoyed. 

“He is so gosh darn infuriating,” Foggy says sagely, as though agreeing with something Karen had said. It must have shown in her expression. 

“I can hear you,” Matt calls chidingly, nearly in a sing-song.

“Yeah, you were meant to,” Foggy yells back, almost, but not quite, vindictively. He's too inherently good-natured to really pull it off when he doesn't mean it. Or when his empathy and the burning responsibility he has to charge in and  _make things better_ with his loved ones isn't throttling him. 

Karen pulls him by his sleeve into the apartment after her and shuts the door. She waits until she's kicked off her heels, set down her bag, and hung her jacket before she steels herself to glance at the shadowy figure lounging in her armchair. He's fully suited, the eyepieces the only points of light from the corner of the room, glinting in the dark, and he seems like he's collapsed into the cushions, limbs spread wide and limp as though in exhaustion. The way he's hooked one ankle over the opposite knee does nothing to diminish the effect, at least in her eyes. His lower face is the only skin exposed, and he's noticeably pale even in the dimness, his five-o'clock shadow scruffier than usual, verging more on an actual beard. His cheekbones stand out too sharply against his skin, though not so sharply as his thin, razor-edged smirk. 

Foggy finishes putting up his own jacket and then shuffles to her side to stare at Matt as well, at a loss. Frank is stowing his gun back under his coat, which occupies his attention for another few seconds before he, too, has nothing more to do, and looks from Matt to Karen, expectant. She stays frozen at the edge of the entryway until Foggy clears his throat. 

“So, uh, Matt,” he starts haltingly. “Do you know why you're here today? Night? Tonight?” 

Matt tilts his head to the side, a mockery of dutiful thoughtfulness. The stubby, aggressive silhouettes of his horns stand out, one just brushed by the low shaft of light from the living room window. The probably-unlocked window attached to the fire escape, which solves one mystery. “Well, I happened to hear you guys talking and supposed that I'd drop by, seeing as it concerned me. It wouldn't be an intervention without the self-destructive individual in question in attendance. Would it?” His light baritone is soft and measured, pitched low and undisguised, piercingly familiar but jarringly incongruous, issuing as it is from below the Devil's mask. 

“So, what, you followed us on the rooftops and then  _broke in?_ ” Karen says, and she feels unwarranted in her defensiveness but can't seem to help bursting with it, scared and frustrated and furious for no real reason. Yet. 

“You could've just  _answered_ my  _calls,_ dude,” Foggy says incredulously, unconsciously catching on to Karen's distress. 

Matt frowns a little, not quite abashed but maybe a little more cognizant of his ridiculous, impulsive, _irrational_ decision-making. God give her strength. “I thought this would be easier.” 

“What?” Foggy asks. “Telling us you're fine and to fuck off in person?” 

Frank has settled against the couch, his hip hitched onto the backrest and his arms folded, silently and somewhat scornfully observing the proceedings. He snorts when Foggy swears, possibly impressed, or just in general approval. Matt cocks his head at the sound, angling his ear towards Frank in a little clockwork twitch before leveling out and facing Foggy squarely again. He's not smirking anymore. 

“Basically,” he says, “yes.” 

Foggy sucks in a long, deep breath, his chest gradually puffing out like a balloon reaching its capacity, then lets it out, blowing it through his lips with a thin wheezing sound, deflating. After a moment of utter stillness his head bobs up again and with false cheer he claps his hands together and says, “Right, well, I need a moment before I get back on this godawful vigilante-related merry-go-round of conflicting emotions. So I'm making tea. Anyone else want tea? Karen? Do you, uh, have tea for me to make?” 

“Uh, yeah. By the coffeepot. Kitchen's right that way,” she says, clearing her throat and pointing. Its location was very obvious, it being catty-corner to Matt's armchair with nothing but a sort of Japanese-inspired screen half-separating it from the living room, just behind them and around the corner from where she and Foggy were standing. 

“Okay then,” Foggy says brightly, and then makes himself scarce but for the occasional unexplained clamor of pots and pans crashing together. He also turns on the kitchen light, and it glows gently through the white paper screen, lighting up the flowers and koi painted on it, pink and blue and cream and orange, and making apparent the deep red of the Daredevil costume. She can also now see a bit of congealed blood smeared beneath Matt's nose, flaky and rusty in his overgrown stubble. 

“Nice goin' there, Red,” Frank says sarcastically, and Karen rounds on him with a rebuke on her tongue but Matt beats her to the punch. 

“Oh, like  _you_ have any room to talk, Frank. Tact isn't really one of your  _applicable skills,_ either.” 

“What's that supposed to mean?” 

“What do you think.” It's a statement, not a question. 

Frank bristles, his jaw flexing as he grinds his teeth. “Kinda déjà vu at this point, ain't it, Red? Same old song from a broken record.” 

“I didn't mean to imply that your only applicable skills lie in killing. For once I wasn't yet again criticizing your methods, however much they may differ, morally, from my own.  _You_ drew that conclusion. Unprompted.” 

Foggy rattles some dishes with unnecessary noise and vigor, slamming a few cupboards. 

“'Didn't mean to imply' my ass. I know what you meant, Red. Why can't you just say it to my face, huh?” 

Matt plants the sole of the boot formerly propped on his knee onto the floor with a solid thump and leans forward. “I meant that neither of us can  _afford_ to make nice. We can't  _afford_ friends or family, let alone offer them the reassurance of comforting lies. I'm trying to sever ties cleanly and you're just tangling me up again in a misguided attempt to grant me help that  _I don't need._ Just  _let it be,_ Frank.” 

_"Bullshit,"_ Karen snarls. They refocus on her and she feels herself grow rather than shrink beneath their attention, meeting it like a challenge, an ocean wave rearing up against a cliff. She strides over to the side of the couch, just short of stomping. “You  _need help,_ Matt. And Frank, you're  _here to help,_ not to argue over unrelated personal issues. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal, ma'am,” Frank says immediately, but Matt has crouched further forward and drawn his arms around his stomach, sullen. She can see a little looseness to the body armor, around his shoulders, as though there's space between him and the stiff Kevlar, room for it to chafe. He's lost weight. Maybe muscle mass. Hell if Karen knows. 

“Matt?” she repeats, stern as a schoolteacher who's caught a child cheating. She doesn't know what she'll do if he refuses to respond. 

“Answer the nice intrepid reporter lady!” Foggy orders from afar. 

Matt stubbornly firms his lips into a flat line. 

“Really?” Frank asks. 

“Let's... let's just move on,” Karen says, suddenly tired beyond measure. She slides around the coffee table and throws herself down onto the couch, tilting her head back and closing her eyes with a groan. It feels really, really nice to get off her feet. She props them onto the table, crossing them at the ankles, and wonders how much longer they all can sustain this farce. 

“Are you okay?” Matt murmurs, honestly concerned, and she opens her eyes again. 

“Yeah,” she says. “Just been having a hard day.” 

Matt's mouth twists. “I'm sorry,” he says. “I don't... I know I'm part of the difficulty.” 

“Yeah, but. You're worth it,” she tells him, half teasingly and half dead-serious. 

Matt lifts one shoulder in a shrug, his mouth smiling ruefully, and Karen flaps a hand in his direction. “Just, for God's sake, take that dorky helmet off. We all know it's you under there.” 

“ _And_ you look ludicrous in it,” Foggy says, coming in with four steaming mugs, two handles held in each hand. He leaves the light in the kitchen on, his shadow walking in front of him. 

“I look cool,” Matt asserts grouchily, with the air of a man who knows he's inevitably going to lose the argument. 

“Leave the visual fashion judgments to the sighted, buddy,” Foggy says. He sets the tea on the stained wooden top of the battered coffee table, lays out coasters he's dug up from somewhere, and then painstakingly relocates the mugs onto the coasters. Karen doesn't even remember owning coasters. 

She shifts to the right side of the couch so that he can take the left without asking, farther away from Frank. He doesn't seem to notice and makes no comment. 

Matt makes an abortive movement towards his mask and then stops, chewing on his lip. “I didn't mean to stay for long.” 

“Well you're here now, and this conversation is happening whether you like it or not, so get with the program,” Foggy says. 

“Or you could try to leave,” Karen chimes in. “But I wouldn't recommend it.” 

_“'Try_ to leave?'”

“I am not above siccing Frank on you,” she says, and both Matt and Frank let out simultaneous huffs of reluctant laughter before just as quickly stifling them and ignoring each other's lapses with something almost akin to courtesy, or maybe a mutual truce to maintain their collective dignity. 

Matt ducks his head as he unfastens the helmet and pulls it free, dropping it down beside his foot with a hollow thump, surprisingly light. His hair's an absolute wreck and there's a line of bruising along the tops of his cheeks and over his nose, where the edge of the mask must have dug in during a blow to the face, and beneath a brow knitted in consternation his eyes, dark and glazed as ever, flick aimlessly from side to side, guilelessly wide as they betray his discomfort. For some reason his health seems much worse to Karen when his whole face is exposed, like maybe, when she could only see half his face, the little signs she'd noticed such as the unkempt stubble and the pallor and the sunken cheeks could've been a trick of the light, or just a trick, even; maybe he'd only looked different because he'd looked like Daredevil, and not like Matt. But it's irrefutable now. He looks fucking awful either way, no if's and's or but's about it. 

Matt's head tilts towards them a bit, and the corner of his mouth curls up, sour and self-deprecating. Of course he can tell what their reactions were to his appearance; or at least, hers and Foggy's. Frank is still standing and facing in the opposite direction entirely. Eyes on the door. 

“So,” Matt says. “What do you want to talk about?” 

Karen opens her mouth. Closes it again because how the hell do you broach a subject like this. She shares a glance with Foggy and by that time Frank's decided that they're taking too long. 

“Oh, I dunno, Red. How 'bout the fact that you're skin and bones? Huh? Out rampaging against crime despite bein' ready to fall over flat any damn second.” He's still stationary, arms crossed, resolutely turned away. Karen can tell he's trying to sound less affected than he is. 

“Watch out, Frank. I might assume you're worried about me.” 

“Take this seriously, Matt,” Karen says, right as Foggy goes, “For once Castle's got a point. I'm with him on this, buddy.” 

Matt raises his hands, palms out, his eyebrows raising. He still has his gloves on, along with the rest of his costume, is still sheathed in armor all the way up to his neck. It looks out of place against Karen's dingy corduroy chair cushions, humdrum normality meeting the danger-ridden outré, the contrast verging on the surreal. “I don't know what to say to all of you, other than that this really isn't warranted. I'm okay.” 

“Matt,” Karen whispers, “do you want to die?” 

Everyone seems to stop breathing, tension flowing into the room like water flooding a closed compartment. The prospect of drowning in it hangs heavy between them. 

Matt slowly shakes his head in negation. “I—” he pauses, clears his throat. “Of course not.”

“Then,” she says, and she's crying again, why the fuck is she always  _crying,_ whenever she's sad or angry her eyes just start streaming like leaky faucets, “why aren't you taking care of yourself? Why won't you... just let us  _help you?_ ” 

“Karen,” Matt begins, and he sounds unbearably gentle, and she just  _knows_ he's going to say something patronizingly false in reassurance, and she cuts him off mercilessly, her voice a low, uneven growl. 

“Don't try and sugarcoat your lack of self-worth. Don't give me any of your fucking excuses. You're a shitty liar, Matt, and we all know the truth now. I want an  _explanation_ . I want to know what's  _really_ going on.” 

Matt is blinking rapidly, his eyes rolling and downcast, his expression otherwise shuttered. “I'm just...” He raises his head again, gaze roving sightlessly over their positions, and then he smiles, a shadowed, shallow thing, one shoulder hunching in a loose half-shrug as though that will help convince them of his blitheness though he can's seem to speak at a normal volume, unable to trust his voice. “I just need to keep myself busy for now. I'm fine.”

“Really?” Foggy asks, sounding choked-up. Bereft. 

Matt angles his head in Foggy's direction, that unbelievably terrible smile still fixed on his face. “Really,” he says. 

Karen becomes aware of Frank's breathing before he bursts into motion, his lungs heaving like a bellows, perceptibly altering the air of the room like a burgeoning storm does atmospheric pressure. He's around the couch and in front of Matt before she can formulate a way to defuse the situation, and Matt's already risen to his feet to meet him. Within the space of a second they're chest-to-chest and Frank has clamped his hands over Matt's shoulders, Matt responding by lunging his hands towards Frank's throat and holding himself back at the last moment to instead clutch hard at the lapels of Frank's coat when he must register that Frank isn't quite attacking yet. Matt's calves are pushing against the armchair, every line of his body taut and vibrating with fury. 

Karen and Foggy scramble to their feet and round the other side of the coffee table but know better than to try and physically intervene, and Karen, for one, is too shocked besides. 

“ _You lost her,_ ” Frank says, snarls, his face contorted into an unreadable rictus. “You're _hurting._ But you _do not_ get to jus' _burn yourself up and throw yourself away._ You _do not_ get to _hurt_ the people who _care about you_ when you have those people _left to hurt._ And if you're gone, they  _will be hurting_ .” At every other word he shakes Matt's shoulders for emphasis, Matt's body holding stiff against the onslaught, his hands yanking down Frank's collar so far that it's digging into the back of Frank's neck, but Matt has blanched to a sickly white, paler than Karen would have thought possible, his eyes fixed in place like a pair of smooth brown stones, his jaw grinding so hard Karen thinks she can hear his teeth creaking. He and Frank are both breathing hard, nostrils flared and chins set, their faces so close that from a different angle she might've thought they were kissing. 

Frank releases him and they shove away from each other with almost more violence and abruptness than they had evinced when meeting, Frank stumbling against the coffee table hard enough to kick it several inches with a horrendous wood-on-wood screech before making it behind the couch again to pace back and forth in long, restless tiger-strides, Matt swaying back over the armchair without losing his footing and leaning over to snatch up his helmet without diverting his attention from Frank. 

“Matt,” Karen says, and she realizes that she's holding tight to Foggy's hand. She doesn't know when it happened. 

Matt swings his head towards them, looking feral as a trapped animal, barely keeping himself from baring his teeth, and Foggy says, “You're important, Matt. To us. You're so important.” 

He tenses, twitching, and then shoves his helmet on, buckling it as he brusquely passes them to reach the living room window. He throws it open, slides out under the sash, and slams it shut again with a flowing, practiced ease and disappears into the dark city, the sound of his footsteps ringing on the fire escape lingering for far longer than he himself did. 

“Oh my god,” Foggy moans, sagging. “Wow, that went  _so_ not well.” 

Karen squeezes his hand and nudges him toward the couch. He plops down into it without resistance, wobbly and dejected. “Oh my god.” 

“Next time will go better,” Karen says. 

“Next time?” Frank asks curtly, halting his pacing for a moment. 

“Next time,” Karen repeats firmly, and the moment she says it she feels the certainty of her mission in her bones, bolstering her like steel, unbending. 

Frank nods, once, sharply. 

“Ugh,” Foggy says. She turns to see him grimacing at the mug in his hand. “I mean, yes to what you said, but. Cold tea.” 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha ha I lied it's not two chapters. It is growing. Mutating. Becoming STRONGER.

Matt's breathing is ragged. It saws in and out of his chest with a painful rattle, phlegm of some sort crackling in his lungs. His balance is off and his reaction time down and his head feels as though it's filled with cotton batting, his radar sense screwed, his ears, despite seeming stuffed, even more sensitive to sounds than usual. Everything hurts. His joints ache, his feet can barely take his weight, every bone creaking. There's a heavy pressure lodged in his sinuses, occluding his sense of smell and pressing in on his brain, hot and pulsing. The skin around his nostrils is cracked and papery, thin snot dribbling down like lava, his lips not much better, his breath rushing too warm in his mouth, a desert breeze. Sand on his tongue, a storm in his head, and a swamp in his lungs.

He's halfway to true blindness with so many of his senses askew or down, a construction of spun glass and paper mâché. But he can still make a difference. He can still catch a bullet.

It hits him right in the chest but Melvin's armor is top quality. It's been saving his life more and more lately and it does so now. The bullet hits hard enough that he's surprised his ribs don't crack, again, but the impact just spreads across his torso in a surprising, stifling bloom of pain and throws him back into the brick wall. He's stunned for a moment; not good. A gun raises, the same gun, aimed towards his lower face. He throws himself to the side and the bullet spatters brick dust, slivers hitting his cheek, the report close and thunderous, echoing in the sluggish, confusing cavern of his skull. He lunges forwards, grabs the man's hand and pushes his arm up so that when the trigger's pulled a third time it does so towards the sky. Matt brings his knee up into the man's sternum, hard and sloppy, and falls on top of him when he goes down, but it's done the job. His opponent's unconscious.

Matt can't question him about whoever's supplying the criminal element of Hell's Kitchen with high-level ordnance, either, but this guy's just a bottom feeder, lowest rung on the ladder. A dead end anyway. The man didn't even have any of the armor-piercing rounds Matt's been tracking. Which is just as well, really. Otherwise the new ding in Matt's chest plate would be something more along the lines of a bloody gaping hole.

He fumblingly locates the man's phone in his jeans pocket, pulls it out, and dials. He stands and coughs as it's ringing and the wash of dizziness distracts him from the 911 operator on the other end for a moment. Matt knows better than to try and shake his head to clear it and just starts speaking instead, ignoring how he sways in place, feet planted on either side of the guy on the ground. He pitches his tone into Daredevil's gravel despite the way it scrapes his sore throat, gives the bare details, mentions shots fired, the street name, then hangs up, tossing the cell to clatter on the rough concrete.

He makes it some distance away, into the nearest alley with a fire escape, before he stumbles, falls, and passes out.

When he swims back into awareness Brett Mahoney is leaning over him, cursing under his breath and poking his shoulder tentatively with an index finger as one would when trying to determine whether or not a creature happens to be alive.

“Nope, nope, no way,” Brett is muttering, quietly enough that anyone else would not have been able to hear him. “Oh sweet baby Jesus, do _not_ make me have to tell my mom this dude kicked it, she loves him more'n me, almost as much's Foggy, she will _not_ take it well.” 

Matt's groan cracks partway through into a high, undignified whine in the back of his throat and then gives way to a weak cough. 

“Oh thank goodness,” Brett says, much more loudly, the last word breaking into a long, relieved sigh. He stops poking Matt's shoulder and rocks back to rest on his heels, his elevated heartbeat leveling out with Matt's proof of life. His coarse, heavy uniform coat shifts reluctantly as he reaches up to wipe his forehead. “Okay. Oookay. Don't scare me like that, man.” 

There are a couple police cruisers out on the street. There's the crackle of a radio and the slam of a car door as the man Matt had apprehended is loaded into the backseat. Three others, two already getting into the cruiser with the perp, driving off, the last leaning against the remaining car and yawning. Waiting for Brett. Who must not have raised an alarm. 

Matt starts getting his arms underneath him, laboriously preparing to get himself upright. His breathing is fast and shallow, but if he doesn't keep it that way he erupts into hacking coughs, so it can't be helped. 

Brett's heartbeat spikes and he seems to hold himself back, like he wants to reach out and touch Matt's shoulder again, maybe hold him down. “Careful, there,” he says. “You, uh, you wanna come quietly?” 

“In your dreams, Detective,” Matt rasps. He almost has his knees under him, and from there... well, he's almost there.  _Progress._ “Have to... catch me, first.”

Brett releases a soft huff of air, not quite laughter. Maybe a little exasperated. “Look, dude... Daredevil. I think you know I'm not gonna take you in, but only 'cause I'm not one to kick a man when he's down.” 

A lie. He wouldn't take Matt in anyways, not now that he trusts him. “If it's any consolation, I'm almost up.” 

“Not gonna kick you then, either,” Brett says. “Seriously, you need a hand?” 

“No,” Matt bites off, and rears up into a precarious kneeling position. Now he's going to have to confess to the sin of pride the next time he visits Father Lantom. Great. 

Brett isn't leaving. “Not to intrude, but the hell's wrong with you?” 

Matt makes the effort to breathe in deeply, suppressing the spams in his diaphragm and pushing through the short, stabbing pain which accompanies the expansion of his chest, sucking air in through his mouth, because his nose is clogged beyond all hope. His lungs sound like Rice Krispies, or at least the off-brand versions his dad would buy him late at night, walking home from the boxing ring, so Matt would have something to eat before school the next day. He suffers a spate of heavy coughing instead of exhaling, which is about what he expected. He'll get better at it, though. “It” being breathing, but whatever. He'll control it. The mind controls the body. “I'm fine. Just a cold.” 

“You're so sick and tired you fainted in an alley like a delicate maiden in some Jane Austen-era novel. That's kinda  _not fine,_ you know. Not in my book.” 

“Then it's a good thing we're not in one of your harlequin romances. Now if you don't mind, officer, I'll be taking my leave of you—” Matt surges to his feet, intending to vault up the nearby fire escape and disappear into the familiar rooftop terrain, but between one step and the next he's already tripping again, careening downwards. He barely feels Brett grab him under the armpit to support him as he sinks back to his knees, his head spinning and floaty, bile rising in the back of his throat. He gags and manages not to vomit in his utter, miserable disorientation, scrabbling for purchase and managing to find handholds on Brett's sleeves. His coughing sounds like a barking dog, ripping up his throat, unable to dislodge the blockage in his chest no matter how hard he tries. 

_"Sir?"_ someone shouts. It's a young female voice, rife with tension. Brett's partner, who'd wandered away from the squad car to see what was taking him so long. She's inexperienced and scared, her hand already half-drawing her sidearm at the sight of her superior being held by the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. 

Matt groans. He hadn't even noticed her. He's too distracted. Off his game. He's gotta get the hell out of this situation ASAP. Definitely before he gets Brett in trouble. 

_"Freeze!"_ she demands, and, yup. There's a gun being pointed at him again. Fourth time tonight in as many separate altercations. A record. 

“Singh,” Brett is saying, raising a hand and probably about to add something stupidly revealing like “Stand down,” when a mass of muscle sweeps in on silent feet behind her, all exacting coordination and deft economy of motion shrouded by the heavy flap of leather, heartbeat booming steady as a metronome. 

Frank Castle almost effortlessly disarms Singh and pulls her into a chokehold, nearly tender as he restricts her breathing, the crook of his elbow forming a vice around her throat and the hand of his other arm locked behind her head, bearing her relentlessly forward into the pressure. He waits patiently until she ceases struggling and goes limp, and then lowers her to the ground rather than allowing her to fall. 

“Brett,” Matt murmurs urgently, because he's got his own gun out now, aimed at the Punisher. “Brett, if you know what's good for you, drop the gun.” 

Brett's breathing hard, the acrid tang of fear-sweat coming off him and his heart racing like a horse at full gallop.  _"Singh?"_ he calls, voice on the edge of breaking. 

Frank stands in full view, hands empty and still, betraying nothing but calm as Matt rushes to say, “She's fine, Brett, she's just unconscious, she's fine.” 

“I only kill the bastards that deserve it,” Frank intones roughly, and he's still standing there, like he's just waiting for Brett to shoot. 

Brett's hands shake a little, the metal components of the gun clattering very, very faintly, and then he lowers it, clicking the safety back on. 

“What. The.  _Hell,_ Frank?” Matt bursts out. Because really. 

“You're welcome,” Frank says, strolling over to lean against the alley wall, his coat scraping. This is possibly revenge for Matt surprising him in Karen's apartment. 

“ _Leave,"_ Matt snarls, and then coughs off to the side. 

“Mahoney, right?” Frank says, addressing Brett. “15th Precinct. You've done good work.” 

“I'm flattered,” Brett says, teeth clenched to keep them from chattering, still plainly terrified, but not enough to prevent him from employing his favorite form of dry sarcasm. Matt knows a defense mechanism when he sees one; decides not to call him out. There's a time and place. 

“Why are you here,” Matt presses Frank, trying to stay on topic even if no one else will. 

“Thought I'd tag along, keep your sorry ass from gettin' killed,” Frank offers offhandedly. 

“I'm not going to get myself  _killed."_

Frank makes a low, rumbling sound of disbelief. “Sure.” 

“I'm not the only one who thinks he looks like death warmed over?” Brett pipes up, and Matt slowly rotates his head to fix him with what he's pretty sure is the mother of all incredulous looks. 

Matt is ignored. 

“If that ain't more than the common cold he's got there I'll let you slap the cuffs on me right now and skip on back to prison with a song in my heart and a tune on my lips,” Frank says. Matt swivels his head to bestow The Look on  _him,_ instead, again to no appreciable effect. 

“Dumb-ass probably has pneumonia,” Brett says scathingly. 

“At least the flu,” Frank says. 

“At _least,"_ Brett agrees, and when the hell did he suddenly stop being frightened of the _mass murderer_ at the mouth of the alley? When did _any_ of this start _happening?_ _What_ the _Hell_ is _going on?_

“Goodbye,” Matt says, and starts hobbling away. Because he is  _done._ That fire escape is around here somewhere and he is going to climb it and get away from this madness and go punch bad guys until things make sense again. 

“Whoa, whoa, hey,” Brett is saying to Matt's back when Frank strides up behind him and grabs him by the scruff of the neck, yanking him to a halt. 

_"Frank, so help me God,"_ Matt growls as he finds all the paltry forward momentum he'd managed to work up lost to him,  _gone,_ just like that. 

Brett's firearm is raised again, leveled at Frank's back. Frank has his own body armor beneath his coat and Brett still has the safety on, but the threat is nonetheless clear. 

“What, you  _wanna_ let 'im leap around from buildin' to building? Lookin' like  _this?"_

“No, I just think I'd rather be safe than sorry around you, seeing as the last time you got your hands on Daredevil he was dragged away in a smear of blood through a bunch of broken glass.” 

“He was fine,” Frank dismisses, as Matt indignantly bites his tongue to keep from blurting out that he'd ended up  _chained to a rooftop_ with a  _gun taped to his hand, Frank,_ that was _not fine._

“I'm fine  _now,"_ is what Matt says instead. 

“Uh,  _no,"_ Brett says. 

Frank just scoffs, his thumb pressing into the nape of Matt's neck, his hand hard and heavy through Matt's uniform. For some reason Matt has to suppress the urge to push into his grip. Maybe because it feels like Frank's the only thing holding him up right now. 

“You won't arrest me,” he says to Brett. “You won't kill me,” to Frank. “And neither of you will let me leave.” With a tremendous burst of willpower he shrugs out from under Frank's hand and turns towards them, holding out his arms, palms up as though presenting something, as he does sometimes in court. As he  _used_ to do in court. “Gentlemen, we appear to be at an impasse. What course of action would you suggest we take?” 

Frank gets up in his space, toe-to-toe again, and Matt resists the little voice in the back of his aching head which is telling him to take a step back and refuse to get sucked into Frank's alpha-male-posturing bullshit and instead stands his ground, lifting his chin so Brett will think he's looking into Frank's eyes. “Well, Red, let's start with a doctor's appointment.” 

Matt considers it for a moment and then laughs, long and loud. “What?” he exclaims, reeling away as his laughter devolves into coughing and then back again. “A  _doctor?"_

“Wait, that's a really good idea,” Brett says. 

Matt instantly stops laughing. “No.” 

“But I'm not leaving you alone with him,” Brett continues, to Frank. 

“He's not some kinda princess with virtue that needs protectin',” Frank replies, nettled. 

“Nevertheless,” Brett says. He... he wants to protect Daredevil. From the Punisher. By escorting him to a doctor's appointment. For a case of the sniffles. 

_"No,"_ Matt says, more vociferously. 

Frank taps his right index finger against his thumb, a thinking tic which usually indicates that he's about to do something which likely involves physical force. “All right,” he says, and spins to the outside of Brett's gun arm, knocks the gun free and catches it, and then points it at the back of Brett's head. 

Brett flinches hard, raising his arms and hunching his shoulders.  _"Don't."_

“My finger's not even on the trigger,” Frank says, quite truthfully, though he doesn't have to sound so offended about it when Brett has every right to be at least a tad concerned for himself. “C'mon, Mahoney. You can't be seen gallivanting around with me and Horns here of your own free will. Let's just frame it as a hostage situation and hoof it before your baby cop over there comes 'round.” 

“You know that being rendered unconscious for longer than five minutes causes brain damage which may be irreparable, right?” Matt interjects acidly. Claire had given him more than a few stern lectures to that effect and at least some of it had stuck. 

“It hasn't been five minutes yet,” Frank says, and Matt  _can_ hear Singh starting to stir. 

“If you've given her irreparable brain damage I'll track you down wherever the hell you are and damage  _you_ some, don't think I won't,” Brett promises darkly to Frank. 

Frank snorts. “Duly noted. Now let's get a move on. Red? You comin'?” 

Matt shakes his head but starts walking. “Do I have the choice to opt out of this train wreck?” 

“Nope,” Frank says. He's almost  _cheerful._

Matt kind of hates him.

“Then yes,” Matt says.

 

~~~

 

“Daredevil,” Claire greets upon seeing him, leaning heavily on Brett with Frank hovering behind them, Brett's sidearm lackadaisically pointed in their general direction. They'd snuck in through the back door of the little local clinic, which has been up and running for just a couple of weeks, according to Brett, and Frank had pushed them straight into one of the exam rooms where they'd waited for an awkward few minutes of utter silence until Claire had opened the door and feigned shock at their appearance. “And the Punisher. What a surprise.” 

It's not, though. She was prepared for this and has to pretend otherwise so Brett doesn't suspect. And she's frankly doing a terrible job of it. Matt is blind and he still thinks he can make out her unimpressed expression, let alone read the flatness in the delivery of her lines. 

He tries to trace the circumstances which would have led to this... there was, of course, that disastrous conversation with Karen, Foggy and Frank almost two weeks ago. Foggy and Frank were therefore in contact, allied as they were by Karen. Frank, true to overprotective form, has been shadowing Matt on the streets and must have seen him flagging as his illness worsened, told the other two, and Foggy, of course, had access to Claire's identity and phone number and was somehow able to convince her to spare yet more of her time tending to Matt and his problems even after she'd made a clean break. 

Besides Brett's appearance, this was all premeditated. Damn them all. 

“Ma'am, would you mind doing a checkup on Red here? I don't mean to impose none, but I do have a gun and am holding this fine, upstanding member of the NYPD hostage, and I certainly  _will_ blow his brains out if you don't get this man some help.” 

“Oh no. Please just do as he says,” Brett adds. The hand which isn't keeping Matt upright is lifted in the universal “don't shoot” gesture, which is a rather nice touch. 

“I have nothing to do with this idiocy,” Matt wheezes amidst a nasty coughing fit, with utmost dignity. It was a long walk and his rebellious lungs are refusing to take in enough air to keep his brain oxygenated, so he's exhausted, lightheaded, and pretty lost, mostly orienting himself based on Brett, who's standing warm and solid right beside him, rather than even trying to make sense of his wider surroundings via radar. His hearing's exaggeratedly tender and his skin might as well be on fire, or possibly have been flayed off completely, he's not sure. Every movement makes him wince and he only refrains from plugging his ears because it'll do nothing but trap him into the roaring, pulsing, discordant immediacy of his own body and completely fail to cut out external aural input anyways. 

“Yeah, sure, just leave me alone with this maniac and I'll take a look at him.” 

“Thank you, ma'am,” Frank says with grave politeness. He then waits until Brett's deposited Matt onto the crackling paper of the cushioned exam table before manhandling him out the door to hide in the bathroom opposite. 

“You are all despicably poor actors and should be ashamed of yourselves,” Matt tells Claire. 

“Costume off,” she orders. 

“It's not a costume,” he retorts, weakly, and complies. The air feels colder than it must be as it brushes against his sweaty skin, sweeping goosebumps over his flesh and making him tremble like a leaf in the wind. 

Brett is asking Frank if the nurse seemed like she knew the Devil or something, or at least, if she took their arrival rather too easily in stride. 

“Symptoms? And be honest with me, I need to know them all.” 

“Uh, sore throat, congestion, runny nose, joint and muscle pain, some kind of fluid buildup in my lungs. Headache.” 

“Fluid buildup?” Claire pulls on a pair of gloves, snapping them against her wrists more than is necessary at his words. Worried. 

Frank is telling Brett that he probably wants to maintain as much plausible deniability as possible. Brett says  _Duh,_ and that he just wants to be sure the nurse isn't gonna try and kill Daredevil with a syringe or something. 

“Yeah, I can hear it,” Matt says. He wets his desiccated lips. “But it's comparatively mild. I think. Also, uh, some nausea, dizziness, reduced appetite. Shakes and sweats. Chills. Fatigue. Coughing. Almost threw up a couple times but didn't. And my senses are on the brink of going haywire. It's only... I only realized I was coming down with something a few days ago. Thought I could shake it off, but... it's worse. Got much worse, just... as of today.” 

“Jesus, Matt. Open up.” The thermometer sits uncomfortably under his tongue, the electricity humming through the metal and disposable plastic. 

Frank assures Brett that Claire has excellent references. And that if she tries anything, Frank is armed and ready. 

Brett informs him that nothing he just said was comforting, and that Brett will not hesitate to call an end to this truce and take the Punisher down if need be. So he'd better not make a move, he swears to Christ. 

Frank says that he is on his best behavior. Cross his heart. 

The thermometer beeps. 

Claire's heartbeat spikes upon reading it. 

“Bad?”

“Well, you've definitely got a raging fever.” 

“Joy.” 

She gets a tongue depressor and takes a look down his throat, later warms the stethoscope in her hand before putting it to his chest but he still flinches at the iciness of the disc against his burning skin. He breathes in at her absent command, holds it, lets it out when she says, trying his best not to cough into her face. Repeats. 

“Flu,” she diagnoses, taking away the stethoscope. “Severe one. The beginnings of pneumonia on top of it. When's the last time you got your vaccinations?” 

Matt shrugs, gathering his suit about him to still his shivers, though it does nothing to insulate him and everything to irritate with its unbearably stiff, chafing material. “Might've slipped my mind.” 

She sighs deeply and lowers herself into one of the plastic chairs along the wall. She's probably leaning forward, possibly with her head in her hands. Matt seems to be having that effect on people of late. 

He swallows, an ungainly constriction of itchily inflamed muscles, and focuses on staying upright. 

“The weather's turning. Getting colder,” she says, out of nowhere. 

“Yeah,” he agrees neutrally. He's not going to make it easier for her to get where he's pretty sure she's going. 

“Being out in that just makes it worse. Especially without medical care.” 

He shrugs again. 

“Matt,” she says, cuttingly and delicately as a scalpel incision, “where have you been living?” 

Matt breathes in again and gives up, slowly letting himself be drawn down by gravity until he's on his back, the paper crackling at every minute movement like a house fire roaring around his ears. 

“Foggy said your apartment's empty. Landlord repossessed all your worldly crap because you just disappeared without a word.” She pauses, less in hesitancy and more as though she's gathering the resolve for the final blow. “You've been out on the streets for months. Fighting more than ever. Sick. If we'd let you just let things run their course, you wouldn't have gotten better. Matt. You would have died.” 

“You sound so sure,” he says, like a joke, feeble though it may be. 

“Matt,” she says, bitter in her uncertainty, and in her regret. “Just because I don't want to play nursemaid for your every cut and scrape anymore, and just because I was fed up with your Catholic-guilt-ridden hero complex, that? See,  _none of that_ meant that I stopped caring about you, and that it would be okay for you to go ahead and die in a gutter from the  _goddamn flu_ thanks to your own lone-wolf stupidity.” 

“Claire,” he says, and then says nothing more. He has never been good at doing anything other than ruining things. He's always been... insufficient. 

He can't stand the idea that they're all wasting their time on him. He  _despises_ it. But he knows better than to throw that in their faces; they don't deserve his ingratitude any more than he deserves their solicitude. 

“I'm getting a sputum sample out of you to confirm the pneumonia, and then I'm packing you off to Foggy to keep you in line.” Claire's back to business, burying her troubles and insecurities under action. They're rather alike in that respect. 

Frank is needling Brett, asking him if he knows who Daredevil is in a tone that doesn't pose it as a question. 

Plausible deniability, says Brett. 

 

~~~

 

Claire calls Foggy to update him on the proceedings. Foggy says something about getting the car, puts Karen on the phone, and Karen tells Claire that it's such a pleasure to meet her, really, she's heard so much about her and how awesome she is at keeping Matt from pulling stunts. Claire demurs, claiming that she only patches Matt up afterwards. 

Matt puts an arm over his face and facetiously wishes for the sweet release of death.

Claire slaps his knee reprovingly because it's quite possible that she is a mind reader. 

After a while Claire calls out to Frank that Matt's all set to go, at which point Frank apologizes to Brett and locks him in the bathroom. Frank receives his marching orders from Karen over the phone which Claire hands to him while she's putting Matt's bottles of meds into a paper bag and direly warning him to stay the  _hell_ away from aspirin for as long as he's still sick due to something something pneumonia something incompatible. 

Frank gives the phone back to Claire in exchange for the bag, and Claire says goodbye to Karen and only Karen, Foggy apparently having gone absent in the interim. Matt's drifting asleep by this time so he's unprepared for Frank suddenly scooping him up in his arms and throwing him over his shoulder, less like a swooning bride and more like a sack of potatoes, and Matt's strength is sapped by yet another coughing fit so he just kind of sags in defeat and focuses on breathing rather than breaking Frank's neck. 

Frank thanks Claire quite gallantly for all of her assistance, reminds her to release Brett at some point soon but after enough time that he can't follow, and then bundles Matt out to the street corner where Foggy's waiting with the car Karen had inherited from Ben Urich. 

“Hey, buddy!” Foggy chirps as Frank dumps him into the backseat and carefully buckles him up like he's some helpless little kid. 

“This is abduction. Unlawful. I'll press charges,” Matt mumbles, head lolling.

“Yeah, you do that,” Foggy tells him, patronizingly fond. 

This night has lasted for far too long; for all Matt knows it's morning already. He just wants to pass out in peace, damn it. 

Frank settles in next to him and says, “You try and jump out the door of a moving vehicle and I  _will_ go after you without hesitation.” 

Matt cannot tell if he's kidding or not. “Why, Frank, that's a great idea you just gave me,” he says. 

“Ah ah ah!” Foggy exclaims brightly, and a clunky click sounds from all of the doors. “Child locks engaged. There's no escape for you now, Murdock. Next stop: Karen's apartment! Or as I like to call it, Impromptu Matt Meeting Place HQ.” 

Matt feels at a loss. Exhaustion must loosen his tongue because he finds himself saying, in honest, plaintive confusion, “Why are you all doing this?” 

There's a pause, and he thinks Foggy and Frank must be trading some sort of meaningful look but his surroundings are a slowly spinning blur of soft edges, his world on fire down to sputtering embers. Frank moves his hand to Matt's knee, a warm, comforting weight. 

“Because you have to ask that, Matt,” Foggy says, and starts the car. 

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

The first thing Karen says upon seeing a very out-of-it Matt being carried in Frank's big burly arms is “Oh my god, he looks even _worse._ How is that _possible?"_

“Never underestimate Matt's miraculous ability to deteriorate,” Foggy says as Frank Castle, Frank  _Fucking_ Castle, passes them by on the way to Karen's bedroom. “Like an oyster cracker that you hold in your mouth too long and it just kind of turns into mush.” He realizes that Karen is staring after Frank and that he himself is crushing the white paper bag from Claire too tightly in his hand, so he abruptly lifts it up beside his head and shakes it to recapture Karen's attention, the pill bottles rattling inside. “But never fear! The Coalition for Matt's Health and Safety is here!” 

Karen's mouth twitches into a faint smile. “That's a terrible acronym. It doesn't even spell anything.” 

“It does too,” Foggy says. “It spells 'CMHS.' It sounds very official and everything.” 

“Well, I guess it's better than 'IMMP HQ,'” Karen concedes dubiously, taking the bag. 

Foggy sniffs. “There's no pleasing a critic.” 

Frank strides back into the living room,  _strides,_ because his firm, rolling steps are long and purposeful, like he's on a mission, like he's ready to explode into violence at any second, at the slightest provocation. Foggy doesn't like the way Frank makes him feel small and beneath him. Doesn't like how little effort he knows it would take Frank to end his life, to snuff Foggy out like he would extinguish a candle flame. 

But Frank hasn't killed him yet, and  _Karen_ trusts him... and Frank's the only one of them who can keep up with Matt out on the streets, the only one who maybe understands Matt's crazy, self-imposed duty, because he shares it, in a warped sort of way. They need him if they're going to have any chance of dragging Matt back from the brink. 

Frank is holding the Daredevil costume up by the neck, the empty helmet cradled in his other hand like half a hollowed-out melon. The suit looks sad, all limp and deflated, hanging down like that. And also sorta banged up. And smelly. Yeah. It reeks of eau de B.O., blood, and city garbage from here. Foggy wrinkles his nose. 

“Left him in his boxers, figured you wouldn't want this shit soaking into your mattress,” Frank says to Karen, flapping the suit a little for emphasis. 

“Would he really wear that thing to  _sleep?"_ Karen asks. 

“Never underestimate, remember?” Foggy says by way of answer. Like, he knows Matt and his silk sheets totally preclude going to bed in a shell of Kevlar, but still. It's Matt. “Do you have a washing machine?” 

“No,” Karen says, her brows drawing down in the face of this new problem to solve. “We could sneak it into my usual laundromat, maybe...” 

“Not necessary,” Foggy says hurriedly.  _"I_ happen to have invested in a very handsome washer and dryer combo recently. I'll take it back and clean it at my place, easy-peasy.” 

“Awesome,” Karen beams, and it's ridiculously endearing that a woman who looks like an angel out of some classical mural would unironically say things like “Awesome,” pitched sweetly high in that smooth, low contralto of hers. 

Frank is staring at Foggy, his gaze boring into him almost palpably, intense enough to make the back of Foggy's neck prickle. He fidgets and avoids Frank's eyes until Frank says, “You know if you're caught with this, you're as good as confessing to being complicit in his activities.” 

Foggy waves a hand. “I'll just say it's a kinky gimp suit for sexy roleplaying or something. I'm a  _very_ good lawyer, I'll get away totally scot-free.” 

Frank lets out a light scoff, barely a huff of air through his open mouth, but his expression doesn't change and he's still  _staring into Foggy's soul._ It's getting creepy. 

“He'll be fine, Frank,” Karen says, laying a hand on Frank's arm as though to remind him where he is, reaching out and touching him as though she isn't in the least afraid of him. Easy as anything. 

“You don't know that,” Frank says, and wait a minute. Frank is...  _concerned._ That creepy intense stare is his  _concerned face._

Huh. Foggy... does not know what to do with that info. He'll just kinda set it aside for the moment. Get back to it later. 

_"Really,"_ Foggy says reassuringly, with a suitably matching smile. He makes grabby hands for the suit, and with another thin snort of air Frank passes it over. 

It stinks even worse up close. 

“I've got a box you could use,” Karen announces, and flits into the kitchen to retrieve it. 

“Thanks,” Foggy says as she returns almost immediately, triumphantly bearing a cardboard box with ripped-up blue-and-black Amazon tape adorning the edges of the flaps up over her head like Rafiki presenting cub Simba in  _The Lion King._ She holds it open for him as he shoves the suit inside:  _teamwork._ “I'll come back tomorrow? After work?” 

“Yeah,” Karen says, folding the flaps over each other to keep it closed. “Of course, Foggy.” 

“Well,” Foggy says, straightening up with the box under his arm. “I already called a cab. So. I'm off.” 

“Yeah,” Karen says, regarding him warmly, and then she surprises him by swooping in to peck his cheek. Her lips are soft and cool. “Be safe,” she whispers into his ear, and then draws away, her face red. 

Foggy blushes pretty hard himself, glances at Frank, and wishes he hadn't. “Uh, yeah, see ya,” he stammers, and exits with ungraceful haste, hitting himself with the door on the way out. 

 

~~~

 

That night in bed he stares unseeingly at the ceiling for hours.

 

~~~

 

The next day at the law firm he stares unseeingly at his computer screen. For hours.

 

~~~

 

That evening he is in front of Karen's door again, staring at the door handle. Unseeingly. For only about five minutes, though, before booted footsteps approach, there's the clatter of locks being unlatched, and it swings open to reveal Frank Castle. 

Frank. Castle. 

He looks... bemused. Amused? Not confused, though. 

They spend some quality time being cautiously stock-still at each other for a while before Foggy girds his loins, lifts his plastic bags of takeout containers, and says, “I brought Thai.”

Frank stares some more before saying, “Red heard you hanging out here. Breathing.”

“I was working up to ringing the doorbell at my own pace.” 

Frank leans his head to one side, brow furrowed, but he isn't doing that thing where his mouth's open and he's pressing his tongue against his lower teeth, and he's not tapping his fingers together or anything, either, so Foggy's probably not about to die. Goody. 

“Can I... come in?” Foggy ventures. 

Frank silently stands aside, courteously keeping the door open for him so that Foggy has to duck under his arm as he enters. 

Matt is swaddled in a ton of blankets and parked in “his” armchair, the television against the wall, opposite the couch, off to his left, the volume turned down very, very low with the captions on. It's running the news because it's Frank and Matt, so of course it is. A lady with very pink lipstick is talking into a microphone in front of a scene of devastation, the word scrawl inching along the bottom of the screen listing off stock market numbers and the bare bones of the latest political scandal. 

Foggy drops the takeout onto the scarred coffee table and says, “Hey, Mattie,” keeping his voice down because he can't tell if Matt's asleep or not. He sounds kinda tremulous, even to himself, and definitely too worried. It's just the flu. They got him off the street and he's getting better now. Just the flu. 

And a basic disregard for his own health and safety. And also he has nowhere to live. And he keeps saying that he's fine when actually he's absolutely in a  _very bad place_ mentally, physically, emotionally, and maybe spiritually. 

But. Besides that. Matt'll be okay. 

The patient in questions scrunches his face up in some sort of puppy-in-human-form look, his eyes cracking open and glaring balefully in the vicinity of Foggy's left ear. “'M awake,” he mumbles. 

“You are adorable,” Foggy informs him gravely, because there is no way he's keeping that to himself. 

“You. Are. A dickface,” Matt says back, echoing his seriousness down to the low, flat decibel. It only enhances his cuteness. 

“So  _mean,"_ Foggy says delightedly, and gives Matt a little boop on the nose which Matt, currently masquerading as a human burrito, is unable to deflect despite a valiant attempt to duck his head down into the shelter of his fuzzy wrappings. 

“Karen's runnin' late,” Frank says, and Foggy resists the urge to jump in surprise. Apparently when the Punisher is staying a discreet distance behind you and you spot your best friend sitting in front, it's a combination of “La la la out of sight, out of mind” and “Ooh, shiny!” 

Observational awareness is a thing Foggy has definitely heard of, but mostly because it's  _Matt's_ thing. Like, he knew it was Matt's thing before he knew about  _all of Matt's things._ His... his senses, and stuff. Those things. 

“Think she'll be back before the Thai gets cold?” Foggy asks. 

“It's already cold,” Matt says. 

“Shush, Picky,” says Foggy, and looks at Frank for some sort of response. 

He gets a shrug, minus eye contact. Frank's coming around the side of the couch towards the food with the sort of zoned-in single-mindedness which makes Foggy think of sharks swimming towards blood, or jaguars prowling, or some other random predatory animal with which to compare him to. 

And then Foggy realizes that Frank's  _coming towards the food._

“Hey,” he says, as Frank digs out the containers and starts checking them to see what's what, arranging them in a neat row on the coffee table because Karen's place is  _tiny_ and she honestly does not have any sort of a dining area, “what about Karen?” 

Frank shrugs again as he's reaching over to set the rice down, an odd hunch of his extended bicep up towards his ear. “Gonna save her some, but there's no use wastin' time twiddling our thumbs when we could be spendin' it stuffin' our faces.” 

“This isn't a pit stop at a car race, or whatever, this is a meal,” Foggy protests. 

“Food's fuel,” Frank dismisses, sniffing suspiciously at the spicy shrimp before apparently judging it worthy and claiming it for his own by decisively slamming it on his side of the table. 

“It's nourishment for the  _soul,"_ Foggy says. “Company, conversation. Dinner times are good times, you know? Spent with  _others._ You don't  _rush_ your  _soul."_

“Watch me,” Frank says, standing and heading towards the kitchen. 

Foggy notices that Matt is laughing at him, the silent sort of shaking he does when he doesn't want to be obvious about it. The desperate wheezing as he stifles his coughing totally gives him away. 

“And  _I'm_ the dickface?” Foggy says to him. Matt nods, still huffing. “Well, screw you.”

Frank reappears with a bunch of mismatched silverware in one hand and dumps it on the table as he drops himself onto the floor to the right of the couch, keeping one fork for himself as he snatches up his shrimp and starts shoveling it into his mouth. “Red,” he says, mouth full, “you up for some?” 

“Not hungry, thanks,” Matt says. 

“Then you're drinkin' another protein shake soon's I finish.” 

Matt grumbles and subsides into a silent glower aimed at the room at large. 

“You've been making him protein shakes?” Foggy asks Frank, because for some reason Frank is still surprising him at every turn. 

“Been here on Red Watch all day. Keepin' him hydrated, wrapped up warm, shovin' pills down his throat as needed.” 

“He's the best babysitter a boy could ask for,” Matt says dryly. Probably a little resentful at the fact that none of them are giving him a window of opportunity to skedaddle out the actual window. And also pills. Matt  _hates_ pills or medicine of any sort with the burning passion of a thousand fiery suns because they might make him  _woozy_ and he'd rather just  _think_ the pain away. With his  _mind._

“Well,” Frank says, his chewing grinding almost to a halt, “had a lotta practice with watching damn children, back in the day.” He pokes his fork into the depths of his white takeout container, suddenly very interested in something he sees there. 

Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god, landmine area, tripwires being tripped, sad sensitive subject engaged, oh god. Be cool. Be cool, Foggy. Casual. Change the subject. 

“So, have you, like, not sat down to eat an actual dinner-type meal since your family... since you lost them?” 

Foggy's gonna die. And it will all be because of his inability to just shut the fuck up. 

“Foggy,” Matt says, low and warning, but Frank waves at him, the tines of the fork flashing in his hand. 

“Nah, s'fine.” He looks up and meets Foggy's eyes, expression oddly honest, forthright, almost aggressively so, but he's not angry. His eyes are too dull. “Pretty much.” 

“Huh,” Foggy says. He... should have known. “You... can have dinner with us, sometime.” Seeing as he's not in prison where he belongs and isn't going back any time soon. Seeing as he goes around carving his pound of flesh from the criminal underbelly, constantly on the job, constantly on the run, forever a wanted man with no chance of redemption. 

No one should feel isolated like that. No one. 

Not Matt, not Karen, and not even Frank, for all Foggy might once have thought he'd deserve it. 

“What do you figure we're having now?” Frank says, shaking his box of shrimp. 

“Thai takeout in the dark living room while one of us is sick as a dog and the TV's playing the depressing 24-hours news cycle,” Foggy says. “Not exactly the stuff of warm and fuzzy feelings.” 

Frank's mouth pulls into a sudden, lopsided smile like one corner's been tugged by an invisible fishhook, and he bows his head, shaking it slightly. “This's... close to family as anything I've managed to scrape together, after everything that happened. Everythin' I've done.” 

“Yeah, well...” Foggy clears his throat awkwardly. Imagines scooting forward on the couch and leaning in to fold the Punisher into a hug; immediately discounts it as far too life-and-dignity-threatening. “You know this kind of food comes with chopsticks, right?” 

Frank lifts his utensil, quizzically. “Got a fork.” 

“Yeah, but you're  _supposed_ to eat it with  _chopsticks,"_ Foggy says. 

“Don't know how.” 

“Don't know— Matt, did you hear that?” 

Matt rouses at the sound of his name. “What?” 

“The Punisher doesn't know how to use chopsticks.” 

Matt swivels his head solemnly towards Frank.  _"Really,"_ he says. 

“Never tried,” Frank says, gruffly indifferent. 

“This must be rectified  _forthwith,"_ Foggy says, and rummages in the discarded plastic bags and napkins for a long, slim packet of disposable bamboo chopsticks, rips it open with his teeth like a badass, and briskly cracks them apart, no time wasted. Quick scrape against each other to rid them of splinters, one-two, and then he shoves them into Frank's hand, making him drop the fork. “Here, okay, this one is kinda cradled down here, and then this one is held... up here, and pinches stuff, like a bird beak. Kinda. Maybe a stork or a crane or something.” 

Frank's hand is warm and heavily calloused, big, capable hands which can probably disassemble and reassemble any weapon you care to name in seconds flat, but somehow his fingers are clumsy around the chopsticks, thick and hesitant and fumbling. Foggy has to hold his hand in place to get the position right, both his smaller, paler, pudgier ones framing the Punisher's as he slowly guides a shrimp on its precarious path through the air and into Frank's mouth. It falls, of course, before it gets there. 

“Shit,” Frank curses, good-naturedly, just because it's the kind of thing you say when you mess up whether you care or not. 

Foggy realizes he's leaning over Frank's shoulder, sloping and slablike with muscle, and that he smells of clean cotton and faint sweat and a peppery something which is probably gunpowder, Foggy's hair brushing the side of Frank's neck. 

He draws away and retreats back to the couch, saying, “You'll get the hang of it. Maybe. Eventually. Someday.” 

Frank laughs, a rusty chuckle, and Foggy sees Matt sitting alertly in his chair, head cocked in concentration, a dawning look of understanding overtaking his features and seemingly leaving him more confused than ever. 

Fortunately that's when Karen makes her appearance, calling out a hello in advance lest Frank go into Terminator mode or Matt try to leap up in their defense like a healthy person and end up flat on his scruffy face. 

_"Karen!"_ Foggy exclaims, relieved beyond measure. He goes straight up to her as she's still shucking off her shoes and just sort of hovers, because  _thank god, Karen's here._ “I got Thai, and we're watching the most boring TV imaginable.” 

“It's the news, it's informative,” Matt calls. 

“Nooo,” Karen says. “I just got  _home_ from the news, and it's already beaten me here?” 

“I know, it's deplorable,” says Foggy, trailing after her as she makes a beeline for Matt. “I vote movie night.” 

“I vote yes,” Karen replies, feeling Matt's forehead with the back of her hand and then bending to plant a kiss against his hairline. 

“I'm  _contagious,"_ Matt exclaims, scandalized. 

“You're  _adorable,"_ Karen says. 

“I know, right?” Foggy says, grinning with devilish, vindicated glee. “I say we go with  _The Lion King._ Or  _Princess Bride."_

Matt perks up at the mention of  _The Princess Bride,_ a film he'd memorized with Foggy backwards and forwards in college when Foggy was still honing his narration skills and which they can both subsequently quote in their sleep, and then tries to cover by saying forlornly, “But what of the all-important 24-hour news cycle? I can't  _miss_ any of it.” 

“I'm sure it's vital, Matt,” Karen says, “but you're actually _in_ _The Princess Bride._ You can't say no to a chance like that.” 

“The Man in Black,” Foggy laughs.  _"Still_ hilarious. Your first costume was so dorky.” 

“Not a costume,” Matt sighs. 

“What do you think, Frank?” Karen asks, perching herself on the couch. “Want to watch  _Princess Bride?"_

Frank has just been sitting silently, watching them with a soft smile. There's something horrendously vulnerable about the curve of his mouth, the gentle way his fingers are still curled around the chopsticks, resting on the table. “Yeah,” he says roughly. “Yeah, it was my little girl's favorite movie. She... she dressed up as the Man in Black for Halloween. One year, a couple years back.” 

Karen droops a little, leaning towards Frank like she's being pulled in by gravity, and sets a slender hand on his shoulder, squeezes until her nails turn white and then lets him go. 

“Okay then,” Foggy says, feeling speared through, all the way to his heart, at being trusted with this. With all of them. “Uh, decision made, I guess.” 

“You get _it_ ready,” Frank says, rising to his feet, “I'll get Red's protein shake ready.” 

“My blender  _works?"_ Karen asks, flabbergasted.

“I fixed it,” says Frank, over his shoulder, Karen hot on his heels to observe this miracle for herself. 

“He's good at that,” Matt says quietly, obviously not meant for Frank's ears. “Fixing.” Foggy turns towards him, and Matt goes on, “He's better at more than just killing, Foggy.” 

Foggy feels his throat constrict and blinks away a suspicious prickle in his eyes. “You're better at more than... more than fighting, too,” he says. 

Matt tilts his head to one side, pushes his lips out thoughtfully. “People are complex creatures,” he says. “With many needs we each must strive to meet.” 

“Don't get philosophical on me now, Matt,” Foggy says, and Matt shakes his head. 

“I'm just saying. Don't hold it against him when he has to... to do the things which make him whole.” 

“That's... kinda hypocritical, wouldn't you say, bud?” Foggy says. 

Matt smiles. “Ah, but we're of the same breed, he and I, so I'm allowed my censure. There's less than a degree of separation left standing between us... I'd say about one bad day, all told.” 

“Matt,” Foggy whispers, and Matt smiles again, the smile of a man who's both won and lost something within the space of a single breath. 

“There's no stain on your soul, no blood on your hands. In your teeth. You're a good, decent, wholesome person, Foggy, and that's the only reason why you're not running away from us all, screaming. Why you don't  _get it,"_ he says. “And I pray to God you never do.” 

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one finally has more overt aspects of the romance! At the end! But still... yay!

Frank's noticed that Red's... meeker, around Page and Nelson, than he is when he's alone with Frank. A conscientious, half-tamed wolfdog concealing its teeth, trying not to frighten away the sheep. Frank himself finds it a little easier to tone it down and let things go around them, but he thinks it has almost as much to do with Nelson and Page reading as civvies, as non-threats, as vulnerable, making him feel like he has to take a step back from the situation lest he find himself spiraling, out of control, into a rampage, into a living nightmare where he really is the monster he's painted as, the monster he feels himself to be, its claws flexing in his hands, its gnashing teeth and gaping maw lurking in his own mouth, its hunger for glorious, unmitigated  _violence_ in his belly. 

With Red and how he acts around them, though, it's something else. Something more along the lines of ingrained secrecy, of having kept himself hidden even from those closest to him for so long that he's ashamed to bare himself that way, to be that honest in front of them, more scared about the prospect of scaring others than anything else. 

Like he thinks there's nothing but ugliness inside himself, nothing redeeming or at least nothing anyone could bear to look twice at, when he'd had the gall to say to Frank's face that there's good in everybody. The exception to his own rule, a special, sooty snowflake. 

Man, are they both a pair of headcases. 

Red doesn't hide with Frank. And Frank doesn't have to hold back with Red, if it comes down to it. Been that way since their first real conversation, their argument, on the rooftop, maybe the first time Red had ever really spoken at any length when in the mask, when out in the night as his true self. The kid... and they're 'bout the same age, but sometimes Frank can't help but think of him as younger, as a kid, shit... he's foolishly, willfully naïve, inexperienced, altruistic, blind in ways that have nothing to do with his vision, but deep down he's still a fighter, even if he's not a killer, even if he's still managed to keep his feet planted firmly on his side of that line. That... fucking event horizon, from which there's no fucking return. 

It's better, with Karen Page, and with that doughy little long-haired lawyer with the sharp tongue.  _They're_ better, Frank and Red are, even with all the additional goddamn issues Page and Nelson bring to the table, because it's not like either of them are perfect, are saints with nothin' to hide. 

He's seen the way Page's,  _Karen's,_ eyes went hard and icily resolute, when she was holding that gun on him, when she thought he was maybe there to kill her, fear electric in the very pulse of her presence, radiating cold and crisp. Not the first time she'd held a gun on some son of a bitch. Probably won't be the last. 

He's seen, too, the banked, tormented sort of hesitance in Red's former lawyer partner, regret in the sliding path his eyes take. Whether he has anything to really feel guilty over or not, he does feel it, he does think he could've done something more. Been quicker, better, more caring, whatever the hell it is which sticks with him. 

They are, all of them, a little messed up. Some of them a lot. It's a wide scope on the spectrum of crazy, plenty of room for all. A Kinsey scale of cuckoo. 

Kinsey scale. Which is its own interesting comparison, loaded with its own interesting problems. He's always suspected it of himself, been... well, he'd had Maria, so it hadn't mattered when he'd signed up to the Marines for a few tours in the sandy ass-crack of the Earth, and it wasn't going to matter now that she was dead. 

Then again, he'd thought nothing would matter, after she was dead, after his children were dead. They were... they'd been his whole fucking world. 

And now there was another world making itself known to him, rising from the ashes like some especially fucking persistent phoenix, plucking at his sleeve for attention. It'd been Red first, when they were yelling at each other on that rooftop, but he'd been a complication at that point, an obstacle and the means to an end, and only later was he someone Frank felt indebted to, even grudgingly fond of. 

Karen Page had been the one to really pull his head outta his ass, make him think that maybe he could do more than just wreak vengeance, more than dwell on how he relived the bloody shock of the worst, most wretched moment of his low, brutal life every fucking day. She'd been there, standing over him where he was strapped to that hospital bed, her hair a silky fall of pale gold, shining in the dim, harsh lighting like a ray of hope, like a shaft of sunlight in the dark. She'd been... God, right from the start, she'd been... faceted. An enigma, like one of those little puzzle boxes or a Rubik's cube, clicking away, nothing quite aligning to match with his black-and-white view of things, a gentle but implacable stream of questioning, and in her questions there was commitment, encouragement. A future, being proffered. Out of all of them she broadcast her vulnerability the loudest, but it was as much a deception as it was truth. She wasn't some defenseless damsel in fucking distress, shit, she was bravery incarnate, a warrior of milk and honey. He felt like he had to explain himself to her, wanted to be better for her, a better person, but that... well, that kinda proved an impossibility, in the end. 

And lately there was “Foggy” Nelson. Quick-thinking duality in the form of courageous, bleeding-heart compassion and ruthless, realistic pragmatism, all wrapped up in a stubborn façade of impeccable cheer. He coulda called the cops on Frank at the get-go, when his former secretary first called him, but for whatever reason he was letting Frank hang around and contribute to the concerted effort which was knocking some goddamn common sense into his bestest buddy Murdock's head. Frank was useful in that respect, sure, but he'd seen Nelson's lingering suspicion, the occasional sparks of fear. Nelson had his head on straight enough to remember that Frank was a cold-blooded criminal, never mind how “nice” he might seem, or how he might even genuinely feel about them all. Facts were facts: Nelson was a man of the law, and Frank Castle was on the run from it. 

And yet. Nelson was just... letting things lie. 

Hell, Nelson was teaching Frank how to use  _chopsticks_ and had graduated to sitting unflinchingly beside Frank on Karen's couch, close enough that their weight bent the cushions down and bumped their legs together. Nelson on one side, Karen on the other, and Murdock with his blankets and tissues ensconced on the armchair like it was his own private island because he was still insistent on maintaining at least a modicum of distance lest he spread his flu to them. 

Red was the only one besides Frank who seemed to find anything odd in the situation. But that could just be Red's... Redness; his aura of boneheaded independence and general discomfort with intimate social settings of any sort which involved an overabundance of muddled feelings. Frank could kinda sympathize. 

 

~~~

 

It's been four days of Red Watch, which consist of Karen rising from the couch where she'd been sleeping and running off to her job, leaving Murdock's care entrusted to Frank until Nelson arrives in the late afternoon. He's been camping out in Karen's living room, successfully having insisted on taking the floor. He grabbed the necessary supplies from one of his safe houses, including a thin foam pallet and a sleeping bag to shut Karen's fussing up. After desert rocks it's pretty much the lap of luxury. He wakes up before she does, invariably, and learned after the first day to never, ever let her prepare the coffee. He'd also taken to making her breakfast, despite her initial protests, and he's got it ready for her by the time she's done with her morning ablutions. Eggs, toast, bacon, salad or orange slices or something, simple standby shit that Karen still beams over, effusive in her praise as she stuffs her face, chatters on excitedly with her mouth full in a way which shouldn't be charming, yet somehow is. 

She's either easily impressed, or just a very, very bad cook, and he's beginning to lean towards the latter given the amazing, unmitigated _vileness_ of her coffee brew, and the fact that if he doesn't make dinner as well it's invariably going to be some sort of takeout on the menu, not even anything so daring as ready-made microwaveable meals. 

She'll look at the clock halfway through a yoghurt cup and suddenly spring into frantic action, convinced she's running late, and in a flurry of activity she'll thank him, grab her purse, shove all her vital odds and ends into it, hop on one foot to wrestle with her recalcitrant shoe, and have disappeared out the door like she's trying to set some sort of record. 

It always feels achingly familiar,  _domestic,_ like they should be giving each other a perfunctory parting kiss as she's on her way out. The apartment always seems stiflingly quiet in her wake. Today is no different. 

Down the short hall, in her bedroom, Red must still be sleeping. 

Frank leaves him alone to get up in his own time rather than trying to bring him breakfast in bed or in any way treating him like, quote, “an invalid.” 

He retrieves his duffel of weapons and lays out a towel on the coffee table— God, he's going to buy Page a better damn table, one you can sit at with  _chairs—_ and selects a clean cloth and one of his rifles to begin with. 

The ritual of disassembling his weapons, cleaning them, polishing, oiling, sharpening, is time-consuming and soothing. His world narrows to manipulating the intricacies of various firearm components, checking shells for imperfections and lining them up in a gleaming copper row like teeth, the proper angle at which to swish the edge of a blade along a whetstone, all of it hypnotic... and unnecessary, tasks he's not only done so many times he could do it in his sleep, but a ritual he's performed with these particular specimens from his arsenal so many times that everything is already spotless. It's a pointless exercise, for all that it keeps his hands occupied and his mind blank. He's toyed with the idea of leaving to fetch some others to clean, but he can't leave Red alone, the idiot, and he doesn't want to mention it to Karen or Nelson. Doesn't want to guess what their reactions would be, see how they'd try to hide what flits across their faces at the thought. 

He's started worrying about what they think of him. 

Red's rubbing off, maybe. Which is great. Just great. Fan-fucking-tastic. 

There's an escalating fit of coughing emanating from the bedroom, signaling Red's awakening, and Frank thinks back to that first night when they were all called together, trying to get Murdock to admit, naw, hell, just trying to get him to  _accept_ even a  _crumb_ of what they were offering. Remembers what Red had snarled to him, leaning forward in his chair, the quasi-alien face of his ridiculous mask shadowed and savage and strange. 

_I meant that neither of us can afford to make nice. We can't afford friends or family, let alone offer them the reassurance of comforting lies. I'm trying to sever ties cleanly and you're just tangling me up again in a misguided attempt to grant me help that I don't need. Just let it be, Frank._

Matt Murdock not needing help was blatantly false any way you looked at it, but what he'd said had still managed to strike an indisputable chord. 

This might be the right thing, what he's doing for Red, because like hell can that kid go it alone with that massive martyr complex of his dragging him down and he's a good person besides, definitely not expendable as you'd guess from the way he treats himself, but Frank's family man days are done and gone, irretrievable. His presence in this little coalition is unsustainable and was a downright bad idea to begin with. Not a terrible idea, because it'd been Karen's and she's not  _Red,_ but Frank is... Frank. He's the Grim Reaper, the Killdozer, the Artist with an AK. He's the fucking Punisher and there's no changing that now. There's no going back. 

There is no steady domesticity in store for him and it's a mistake to even entertain the fantasy. 

Red shuffles into the room in one of Frank's spare white cotton t-shirts and a pair of Karen's old sweatpants. The pants are an eye-searing hot pink. Karen may have possibly neglected to inform Red of this, but it's not like Frank's going to go behind her back and fix what ain't broke. 

“Mornin', Sunshine,” Frank mutters by way of greeting. 

“Frank,” Red says levelly, by way of response. He makes his way over to the armchair, navigating easily around the table and the television up on its shelf with ginger steps, but there's still a shakiness to his legs and he's holding his fingers spread, ready to put them forward lest he run into anything unexpected. He's getting better, the antibiotics prescribed by Claire Temple combating the pneumonia and the enforced rest and hydration allowing his body to take care of the flu on its own with the help of an Ibuprofen every six or so hours to keep the symptoms' nastiness in check, but he's still unwell enough that Frank figures it'll be another couple days or so before he starts demanding they let him loose. 

And when the time comes, if that's what he wants, as it will be, they'll have to. They can't keep him cooped up in Karen's apartment against his will. First off, they literally, logistically wouldn't be able to; Red's a determined son of a bitch and he'd find a fucking way out sooner or later, go back to patrolling the streets whether they continued to hold his stupid scarlet long johns hostage or not. And second off, Red wouldn't ever forgive them for something like that. Never. 

What's that bullshit saying? Yeah, it went: “If you love something, let it go.” 

What a crock of fucking crap. 

Red curls into his seat, pulling his legs up so he can fold his arms around them and prop his chin on his knees. His feet are bare, bony, and dead white beneath a sparse spatter of fine, dark hairs, the nails a little long, the nail bed on one of his big toes dyed a faded plum-purple under the wavy shell of cracked, cloudy keratin, the toe itself just a tad too crooked. 

It's not unusual for Red to venture out of the bedroom, and it's not unusual for them to spend hours in silence, either. It's... easy. To accept the encroachment of each other's presence. Easier than Frank would ever have thought it could be, before. They know where they stand, is the thing. There's no confusion about that and no need to go over the same old refrain, the same old song and dance, when they can just... coexist, within the same space. When they can be lulled by the sound of each other's breathing, and Red, with those bat ears of his, by the sound of Frank's heart. Proof of living. 

After half an hour, give or take, Frank gets up and heads into the kitchen. Starts making some toast, popping a pair of some awful artisan organic whole-wheat slabs of bread into the toaster, gets out a butter knife and that kind of non-GMO dairy or whatever-the-fuck kind of expensive butter it is that Red favors. Super-senses apparently incline you towards a healthier diet, or at least one with less chemicals and pesticides to fuck with your hyper-discerning taste buds, and fortunately they'd had Nelson with them to spill the beans on Red's favored food brands, 'cause it wasn't like they coulda dragged that info out of Red himself, the reticent, suffers-in-silence bastard. Frank also gets a frozen can of that pineapple orange banana juice slush mix stuff from the freezer, finds a pitcher, and mixes it up with the requisite amount of water with the aid of a long-handled wooden spoon. 

Red ambles in just in time pull the plug on the toaster and keep the bread from burning. Frank hands him a plate and Red plucks the hot slices from the toaster with the very tips of his fingers, butters them there on the plate and eats them standing up, back-to-back with Frank in Karen's cramped kitchen. Frank pours two glasses of juice and sets one on the counter beside Red's elbow, and Red uses it to wash down the toast, draining half of it in one go. Frank tops him off before sipping at his own. 

The flavor takes him straight back to his old house, the breakfast table with the sticky plastic cups and bowls for the kids when they were small enough not to be trusted with ceramic or glass or anything so dangerously breakable. They'd always bought this kind of juice for Junior, for whenever he was sick, 'cause he'd dig his heels in and flat-out refuse any other kind of beverage when his throat hurt. Said that pineapple orange banana juice was like a miracle cure. Either way it made him feel better, so they bought it, always had a can in the freezer. Just in case. 

“Hey,” Red says softly, and he's turned so that he and Frank are facing the same direction, leans over to press into Frank's side, a gentle, solid support. Frank swallows, nods, though he's not quite sure why. Leans over to meet him halfway. 

 

~~~

 

“What ever happened to your dog?” Red was on the floor between the television and the coffee table, lotus position. Meditating, Frank had supposed. Been like that for a good few hours, still as a stone statue but for the slow, deep expansion of his chest with every inhalation. 

“What?” Franks asks, because it's been a while, and he has to shift gears to get his mind focused on words again, on the present. 

“Your dog,” Red repeats, his downcast eyes flicking beneath lowered lids and drooping lashes. Back and forth, purposeful but sightless, like a dreamer in REM sleep. 

“His name was Max,” Frank says, after a while. “Least, he answered to it readily enough, so that's what I called him.” 

“You took him from the Irish?” 

“Yeah, and then they took him back.” 

Red's head tilts, thoughtfully, eyes flicking leftwards. His wispy brows draw together. They look like they've been smudged onto his brow, his rather lank, overgrown hair pushed back from the high, pale curve of his lightly lined forehead, and his patchy wannabe beard obscures the planes of his lower face and upper throat, darkening his jawline like heavier crosshatching on a sketch. The cool daylight illuminates his irises, picks out murky tints of green. “When Cooley caught you. Drilled that hole into your foot.” 

The healed injury in question throbs with phantom pain. Frank presses the foot flatter against the floor to dispel it. “I held out 'til they brought that mutt in and threatened to do to him what they'd tried with me. Had to tell 'em where the money was, then. Mighta left out the bit about the bomb.” 

Red smirks at that, though it fades quickly. “They still have him?” 

Frank shrugs. “Been looking for him, but. For all I know he's dead, killed in a... in a goddamn dog fighting ring somewhere.” 

Red lets his eyes drift shut and bows his head, seemingly sinking back into contemplation, and there is silence once more. 

 

~~~

 

He sits Red on the edge of the bathtub. Makes him take his shirt off and throws a towel around his shoulders, snugs it up to his neck. He combs Red's hair with an actual comb, first, brown hanks of hair separating to slide through stiff black plastic teeth, then with his fingers, never mind the greasiness. The scissors are sharp and slender, meant for this purpose. Karen probably uses them to trim split ends in between visits to a real place to get her haircuts. Frank curves his hand against Red's skull, draws his fingers up, closing them to capture layers of hair in lines and measure out the lengths he wants, carefully bringing shut the blades of the scissors to snip off the tips in neat, methodical rasps to drift down and collect on the towel, float down into the stained, creamy ceramic curve of the tub in clumps and slivers. 

“Thanks,” Red murmurs eventually, when he's looking a little less shaggy up top. 

“Don't mention it,” Frank says. He's sitting on the toilet because it's right next to the tub, in between that and the sink, the bathroom's that cramped. His legs are splayed on either side of Red's knees, framing them so he can get close enough. Every now and then Red brushes against him, his body heat soaking through his luridly pink sweats, discernible through Frank's jeans as their thighs bump. Red has his head angled far down, noticeably trying not to breath on Frank. Probably still concerned about giving other people his germs. His fingers just peek out of the edges of the towel, holding it closed. Frank can see the vertebrae pressing against the skin at the back of his neck. He's too damn skinny still. 

He's barely any smaller than Frank but curled up in Frank's lee like he's sheltered from the nonexistent wind he seems damn near petite. Fragile. Worn down. 

Frank clips off another bit of hair. Tries to think of the onomatopoeia his daughter used to assign to things.  _Schiik,_ go the scissors.  _Schiiiik._

“Foggy likes you now, you know,” Red says, apropos of nothing. 

“I like 'im too.” 

“And yet you don't mean anything by it,” Red says, slyly warm, a little wry, leading somewhere. 

Frank doesn't respond. 

“He sees the humanity in you. The way Karen did right from the beginning. He's less afraid.” 

“He should be.” 

“Afraid?”

Frank nudges Red's leg with his own. “Where you goin' with this?” 

Red tilts his head at the slight pressure of Frank's hand so Frank can reach a new area. The tendon at the side of his neck stands out, a sharp line cutting diagonally down from the corner of his fuzzy jaw. Frank thinks he can just see Red's pulse there, pumping away slow and steady. 

“I'm not sure.”

“Then why bother talkin'?”

“Because this is a subject worth talking about. Exploring.” 

“There ain't nothing to explore, Red. What is it you like to say? 'Leave it?'” 

Red sighs, more like he's bracing himself than in any kind of defeat. He probably doesn't know the meaning of the word. “You like Foggy. Karen, too. You care for them.” 

“Red.”

“You love them.” 

Red can no doubt hear Frank's heartbeat stutter, feel the way he freezes for a split second before he shakes it off and roughly combs his fingers through Red's hair again. “Now, that's a touch sudden, ain't it?” 

“I can tell, Frank,” Red says, low and merciless and unbearably soft. “I can always tell.” 

“And what'm I s'posed to do 'bout it? _Huh?_ ” Frank smothers an unexpected surge of futile anger. Covering up pain. “Not like they feel the same.”

“Karen does.” Frank's breath hitches and he gives up on the scissors for the moment, sets them on the sink counter because he's afraid his hands are trembling, the way they never would with a gun in them. “She has from the start. And Foggy's getting there.” 

“Why're you sayin' this, Red? To me?” 

Red straightens up a little, lifts his face so Frank can read it if he wants, but he finds he can't. Doesn't know how to, all of a sudden. “Told you already. I don't know why.” 

Frank shuffles himself back on the lid of the toilet seat, spine rigid, digging his nails into his knees like he can hold himself together. “Bullshit,” he says. 

“It's the truth.”

Frank rolls his head, cracks his neck, looks away and back again. “Fine then,” he says, confrontational. “Let's say it's the truth. I'm not the only one pining away over here. Thinkin' I'm all alone and gonna be for the rest of my sad, shitty life.” 

Red's expression shifts minutely, morphing into something stonily, subtly hostile. “I don't know what you mean.” 

“Don't play dumb with me, Red, you're a goddamn lawyer. You think those two hung the stars and moon, or, hell, whatever the fuck your blind-ass equivalent would be. You worship them, put them up on a pedestal so high you can't climb up. You ruined what you had with Page by jus' lettin' it slip away, nice fuckin' job there, but she's forgiven you a long time ago and she'd give you a second chance. And Nelson? You've been in love with each other since you met, haven't ya? Too young and stupid and nervous to realize it back then, too complacent to act on it as time went by and risk messin' up what you already had. 'Man Without Fear?' Nah, are you ever a coward, Red, through and fucking thr—” 

Red's teeth clash against his own, biting into his lip harsh and hot and wet, and it takes Frank a little too long to realize that this is a kiss, not the beginning of another fight, though it feels like one, shoving up against each other and trying to draw blood like they both think it's a competition and the other one's the loser. 

They separate when Red starts coughing into Frank's mouth, and he twists away to keep coughing into the crook of his elbow, long, deep hacks like he's dying, run all outta air. 

“Fuck you, Red, you just fucking infected me,” Frank growls, and Red laughs, coughing and laughing and wiping moisture from his eyes with the heels of his hands, the towel slipping off his shoulders and falling unheeded into the tub. 

“If anyone ever deserved it,” Red says, without bothering to finish. 

Frank waits until he's calmed down to retrieve his electric clipper from his things, unwinds the cord and leans down to plug it in as he asks, “These okay?” 

“Yeah,” Red says, still grinning, and he has the most goofy-looking smile that Frank's ever seen barring Maria's, bright, life-filled, graceful Maria, who used to snort when she laughed. 

“Fuck you,” Frank says again, for no reason this time, and he's smiling back, his cheeks and his heart hurting with it. He finishes up Red's back and sides with the clippers, lets Red take them from him and give himself a quick-and-dirty shave, leaning over the sink to catch the stubble as if he could see himself in the mirror. 

Frank repacks his stuff in the living room, the sound of the running shower seeping through the bathroom door and the clock ticking on the wall. The others'll be here any minute now, soon enough. Sun's gone down, everything going a dim, velvety blue-gray. 

Frank clicks on the lamp. 

Let there be light. 

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for an extended conversation about Star Trek. And also a brief mention of depression. But mostly Trek.

It's day five of Red Watch, as Frank's taken to calling it. A Saturday. Foggy and Karen both had the day off and stayed in, and they're already onto the very important discussion of what to select for tonight's movie night because Karen and Matt had both unconditionally put their feet down on board games and none of them can think of anything else to do.

Well. Matt can, but he thinks if he suggests that they let him out to go fight crime they'll all pounce on him in disapproval and try tying him to his sick bed so he can't escape, so he's... biding his time.

 _“Star Trek,”_ he says.

“Ooh, yeah!” Foggy agrees enthusiastically, as Karen laughs, and Frank, cross-legged in a corner, continues to tap away on his laptop, mostly ignoring them, though Matt can tell when he comes out of his research tunnel-vision every now and then in order to spare half an ear towards them, glance around to check the points of entry for signs of activity, and then redirect his attention to his keyboard once more in a reassuringly predictable cycle. He'd probably be more paranoid on his own, but Matt's here, and they all know that he'd be able to tell if any real trouble was coming their way long in advance, and Matt likewise has Frank with his arsenal and manpower present for backup if need be, so the two of them are probably as relaxed as vigilantes ever get, here in the company of Karen and Foggy, aka: precious human rays of sunshine.

Besides, if worst comes to worst... Karen also has her gun, in her purse beside the couch, the smell of cordite jumbled together with those of pencil lead and pen ink, rumpled notebook paper, old receipts, packaged protein bars, lipstick, stale spearmint gum, and electronics, all sheltered within a supple shell of faux leather going gritty and public-place dirty on the underside, the pungency of the dye faded and worn down into the material. And Foggy's propped his baseball bat beneath the coat hanger, a hollowed, tapering column of aluminum leaning below the corduroy jacket with the motor oil stain on the cuff, the fraying tape on the grip stained with the smell of dusty soil, sweat, and pretzel salt.

So they'll all be fine. They're fine. Prepared.

He still perks up when he notices Frank's fingers stalling on his computer keys, and stretches out his own senses to make a sweep around the apartment. He finds only other tenants moving around, wiping feet on welcome mats, chopping onions, fish food being opened and sprinkled into a tank, a teenager reeking of perfume, makeup, and tears listening to Adele too loudly on her headphones one floor below. Nothing to worry about.

He tunes back in to Foggy and Karen's discussion in time to hear Foggy exclaim, “You've never watched _Star Trek: Voyager?”_

“Some of it, but only some. It never seemed like anything special.”

“But _Captain Janeway.”_

“To be fair, Foggy,” Matt interjects, _“Voyager_ is riddled with technobabble and inconsistent characterizations. Not to mention a few too many downright boring episodes.”

“But Janeway. _Janeway._ The first, and to date the _only,_ how unfair and stupid is that, female captain to head any of the shows. She loves coffee and puppies and once leaped through a _plasma fire_ to save everybody on her ship. In short, she's hardcore _awesome.”_

“When her character is being written properly. Which is only half the time. If that.”

“Matt, you are _supposed_ to back me up here.”

“I'm sure it's fine,” Karen dismisses dubiously, “but I'm telling you the only one _worth_ watching is _The Original Series._ After that it's just spin-off after spin-off. No matter how good they are, they're still derivative. They aren't really _Star Trek.”_

“I cannot believe you just said that,” says Foggy, and his hair rustles as he whips his head around towards Matt. “Can you believe she just said that?” he asks, pointing, incredulously indignant.

Karen slaps his hand down. “It's rude to point. Anyways, it's true.”

“Perhaps,” Matt allows, inclining his head, “but it's also unnecessarily harsh, despite being a perfectly valid opinion.”

Karen scoffs. “You think _that_ was harsh?”

Matt hears Frank release a puff of air through his nose, a very subtle sort of laugh.

“No, Matt,” Foggy cries, “that was _not_ a valid opinion, that was _purist slander.”_

“How so?” Karen asks, indulgently. Her bare arms make a dry skin-on-skin sound as she slides them together, crossing them over her chest, her head tilting, but he can hear her smile in her voice as well as sense it in the minute shift of air against her lower face, the way most of her breath is expelled in a soft, humid cloud through her nostrils along with the thinly curved shape of the exhalation which escapes her mouth, the soft, wet smack of her lips tightening over her teeth. If he listens closely enough he knows he'd be able to make out the flex of her cheek muscles.

“Well, for one,” Foggy begins heatedly, with the earnest sort of pompousness he employs in order to be amusing, “the subsequent series aren't, at least outside of lawerly legal terms, _derivative,_ which carries with it connotations of lack of inspiration; they're all _unique._ They don't just _redo_ what _TOS_ did. Instead they go to lengths to explore very different stances on the moral questions presented, and they each tackle different issues, too. They reflect the cultural outlook of each era they were made in as much as they uphold the intrinsically optimistic message which _Star Trek_ stands for. Hear that? They _uphold_ the message, they don't _skate on the franchise's reputation._ 'Cause, for one, let's be honest here, it's a cultural touchstone and an important part of pop culture and yadda yadda, but it's never been quite the ridiculously mainstream, blockbuster, showy phenomenon that _Star Wars_ managed to be. Not that it's not a phenomenon! But it's _different._ And two, the _Star Trek_ reputation has always been about its altruistic, exploratory take on things, and it's impossible to remain _Star Trek_ without delving into interesting social issues and pushing the envelope a little, which wouldn't have happened if all they did was exactly copy the stuff they'd already done back in the psychedelic, Civil Rights-riots, Cold War-era sixties, when, despite having a multicultural and mixed-race crew, they still had an overabundance of cheesy romances with scantily clad green alien babes and a ridiculously self-righteous mindset of American interventionism where the problem was always _fixed_ by Kirk and co swooping in to save the natives from the backwards savagery of their ways.”

“Not to mention the patriotic episode with the Commies and the Yankees,” Matt chimes in helpfully, quite enjoying Foggy's impassioned ranting.

Foggy groans like a dying water buffalo and claps a hand over his face. “Oh god. _The Omega Glory._ With the 'comms' and the 'yangs' and an actual American flag. And Kirk read them the Constitution in his most dramatic Shatner-y delivery, thus teaching them of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which totally solved their blood feud and made them magically see the light of peace.”

“On the plus side,” Matt says, pitching his voice to be heard over Karen's unrestrained peals of laughter, “the unhinged captain guy who killed his whole crew in his quest for immortality ended up losing, and Kirk was able to convince everyone that Spock was not the literal Devil.” He pauses for a beat. “Although, _The Original Series_ also had that other episode, too.”

“That one with the space Nazis?” Karen snorts.

Foggy makes another long lowing sound of agony as Matt thoughtfully shakes his head. “Actually, I was thinking of _Spock's Brain.”_

Karen throws her head back and erupts into wild mirth once more. Her laughter is starting to sound like a squeaky bicycle wheel, or maybe some exceptionally high-pitched seal barks. “That one, where, where they _stole his brain,”_ she gasps, flopping one hand around on a wrist gone weak as her body is racked with merriment.

Foggy's begun to laugh, too, leaning over like he needs to catch his breath. “And McCoy hooked his brainless body up so it was _remote controlled_ and they could _take it with them_ while they looked around the underground caverns. For his _brain._ Which was _stolen.”_

“By that lady who had that special helmet to make her smart. And all the men in the cave compound had _shock collars_ on so that they'd take care of the women there.”

“And when the landing party figured out that the compound's systems would fail without a brain hooked up to it and all the women would have to go up to the chilly arctic planet surface, Kirk eased all their fears by suggesting that _the men_ would want to take care of them even _without_ shock collars. Because _love.”_

“The power of love is a beautiful thing,” Matt quips, setting them off again.

From his corner Frank direly announces, “We are _not_ watching any of that shit.”

“It's not _shit,”_ Karen refutes adamantly. “It's _Star Trek.”_

“ _The Original Series,”_ Foggy adds.

“I do not care,” Frank says. “Not watchin' it.”

“But _Fraaank,”_ Karen wheedles, “it's in _glorious, grainy Technicolor._ And it has _Spock_ in it. _Spock.”_

“So?”

“Spock is _hot,”_ Karen asserts gravely.

Foggy nods. “Spock is indeed a sex symbol for a reason.”

“I always liked him more for his logic than his looks, even when I could still see him,” Matt says.

“You had a childhood crush on Thurgood Marshall and your favorite _Trek_ series is _The Next Generation,_ anyway,” Foggy says. “No wonder you like him for his mind.”

“And his personality, right?” Karen says.

“His _personality?”_ Foggy asks in dumb amazement. “The man is a _Vulcan._ He has all the personality of a board of really logical wood. That is to say, he has _none._ That's the whole point.”

“I'm not so sure,” Matt says. “He has this heart-of-ice allure going for him.”

“So stoic,” Karen agrees. “So mysterious.”

“If only he could find the person to melt his heart of ice and set him free.”

“The person able to thaw him with the warmth of their love.”

“Oh, shut it,” Foggy says. “If anyone's melting Spock into a gooey puddle of emotion I think we all know who it'd be.”

 _“McCoy,”_ Karen guesses, throwing the answer out sharply like a game show contestant.

Foggy gasps in outrage. “No, his _t'hy'la. Of course.”_

“His what now?” Frank mutters. He's abandoned all pretense of work, his fingers resting still on his keyboard as he follows their conversation in mingled amusement and bewilderment.

“He means Captain Kirk,” Matt supplies to him in an undertone.

Frank lifts his chin in acknowledgment and says, “Ah.”

“Your favorite _Trek_ series is _The Next Generation?”_ Karen asks Matt curiously.

“As Foggy so eloquently said, all of the series are unique, and though it's the one which most closely held to the original's optimistic, humanitarian outlook on the future, it's also the one which first took that positive outlook and managed to... distill it, perfect it, while simultaneously bringing in a little more diplomatic detachment and moral ambiguity to the episodes where the _Enterprise_ interacts with sovereign societies. You could say they put cracks in the utopian façade, without... breaking it.”

Matt remembers nights curled up on the musty, threadbare couch beside his father as he recuperated after yet another fight, the fan in the open window struggling to bring in just a touch of breeze to lift the oppressive blanket of summer heat wrapped around them, the television light playing over their faces in the dark, showing a world of cool, soft, evenly lit sleekness, of endless star fields and uniforms of crisp black delineating the brightness of red or gold or teal. He remembers after the accident, tuning in to the reruns, and listening to the philosophical quandaries being posed, the well-articulated assurances and affirmations of equality and tolerance. Remembers Geordi La Forge, a character who was both blind and yet sensorily enhanced through his blindness, and who as a person was portrayed as more than his disability, as competent and compassionate and wonderful. Listening, with his father strong and warm beside him, affectionate and proud, even after everything, and hearing... hope.

It was silly, perhaps. But it had made a difference to him. So many things had suddenly mattered so much more.

“It makes me. You know. Happy,” he says, haltingly, and angles his face away, groundlessly self-conscious.

There is silence but for their breathing, and he shifts under the weight of the others' combined gazes, clenches his hands until his nails dig in a little into the meaty heels of his palms as he feels a sudden surge of anger at the thought that they are watching him and pitying what they see, the devil in him rattling his cage, too long unreleased.

God, but does he ever want to feel the rippling sting of his fists hitting against something.

“Let's watch it, then, Red,” Frank says, quick and blunt like setting a broken bone, and the moment passes.

Foggy chatters on about how they're going to be widening Karen's _Star Trek_ horizons as they set it up, and Frank rises, retrieves a blanket, and drapes it around Matt's shoulders without ceremony. Matt huffs a little but he isn't actually annoyed. At a little bit of a loss, maybe.

He still doesn't quite... understand. Any of this.

“Frank, you'd probably be a _Deep Space Nine_ kinda guy.” Matt angles his ear towards them, brow furrowing, because this is the first time he thinks he's heard Foggy say Frank's name. Frank certainly has yet to say Foggy's. Or even call Matt something other than “Red” or “Murdock,” come to think of it.

It might be too odd to hear Frank say “Foggy” without any sort of mocking bite. He's not sure he can imagine it.

“Really,” Foggy is saying, trying to convince a very skeptical Frank as Karen fiddles with the television remote. “The most cynical tone out of any of them, actual season-long plot arcs which allow for more complicated political thriller stuff, warfare—”

“None of that corny shit you were mentionin'?”

“Weeeell...” Foggy holds a hand out palm-down and tips it from side to side.

“It's _Star Trek,”_ Matt says. “All of it is at least a little corny.”

“Hey, that corny stuff is the best part about it,” Karen protests lightly, pausing the stream of swears she was aiming at the remote's apparently unresponsive, motherfucking buttons. “I _live_ for the kitsch. Eye-popping primary colors, cardboard and Styrofoam sets, trumpets of doom, exaggerated acting... you just can't beat it.”

“And that's why _The Original Series_ is your favorite,” Foggy concludes airily.

“You betcha.”

Matt listens to them banter as they settle down and scroll through the list of episodes until Foggy picks one he thinks is of high enough quality to suitably impress Karen and Frank and dialogue-heavy enough to keep Matt entertained without too much narration necessary, but when the show actually starts Matt finds himself slipping into thought, paying more attention to the three heartbeats on the couch than to what was emanating from the television speakers.

The things Frank said to him last night run through his head. Again and again.

He'd kissed Frank to shut him up. He'd _kissed_ him. And Frank had kissed him back. But it was only to shut him up, not...

Not...

No. No, who was he kidding? Certainly not himself. Matt had _wanted_ to kiss Frank. Had for a long time, maybe. And last night he finally did.

And yet the things Frank had said. The accusations. They were true. The very idea of... harboring affections, for Karen, still, for Foggy, for _Frank,_ for all of them at the same time, was ridiculous, ungainly. Impossible. But he couldn't shake it out of his skull. It was clinging, taking root, like a mold or a fungus. A disease.

He pulls the blanket a little more tightly about himself and tries to consider everything. Logically. He was the one who'd brought it up to Frank, the other night. _He_ was the one who'd first told _Frank_ that he was loved by both Karen and Foggy. Knew that Frank loved them back. And he didn't begrudge any of them their love. He wouldn't even if they acted on it, without him, though there was something small and hard lodged deep down inside him which shriveled up a little smaller and a little harder at the thought of being left behind, of being abandoned as they found happiness. But he'd grit his teeth and endure. For them. He always endured.

No. _Their_ love wasn't the problem. It was setting aside his own.

He'd fallen for Karen gradually, after the initial attraction to a beautiful woman had come and gone and then bloomed anew, reborn in a more genuine, intimate form as he got to know her more and more. It had felt so natural when they'd decided to gravitate towards each other and give it a romantic go. Inevitable, almost.

For a brief time she'd risen as his foremost comfort, an unsullied symbol of all things pure and good, apart from the darkness and the grime of the worst of Hell's Kitchen, a reminder of why he fought.

Of why he lied.

When it had fallen apart, that had also felt inevitable. A relationship couldn't be built on a foundation of deception, no matter how well-meaning. And it wasn't fair to her to hold her up as some mere motivation, or a paradigm of... of innocence, beyond fault. She wasn't. She was a person. A person like any other, but one whom he'd... felt... safe, with. In her arms he'd felt... at home.

But then, it was like he'd told her: he had this incredible ability to bring disaster to the best things in his life. Like Frank had said to him: he'd ruined it by just letting it slip away.

Fucked it up by not caring enough. By being too distracted, too wrapped up in his own oh-so-sad and serious self-righteous bullshit. Not even with the real stuff, the physical perils and mysteries, so much; just his own confused tangle of emotions, tangling themselves further.

And Foggy.

The first time Foggy saw Matt he called him a “wounded handsome duck.” Matt still smiles to himself about that, sometimes. Foggy had been Matt's first actual friend. Of course he had strong feelings for him; he'd always been too needy, too possessive. _Greedy,_ and didn't _that_ still hold true. But he'd stopped himself from ever making that leap, ever attempting to insinuate himself into Foggy's space and life any more than would be good for Foggy, or any more than Matt deserved. Matt remained a friend in turn, companionable and supportive; as good a friend as he knew how but a friend only, and it didn't take all that long for Foggy's heartbeat to cease skipping at the sight of him.

When Foggy found him lying on the floor of his former apartment in what, Foggy would later argue, basically qualified as a pool of his own blood, after the fight at the warehouse down by the water... when Foggy had confronted him the next morning, when he had shed tears as he spoke of secrets and betrayal...

When he had left...

It was far better this time around, when their orbits simply fell out of sync, when their firm was quietly dissolved and the tab at Josie's closed and they just... stopped seeing each other any more. He admitted to Karen the truth, on his own terms, and she didn't scream or cry or blame him, but neither did she reach out to him or try to hold on. By then Foggy knew the truth, and had forgiven him for it all, but Matt knew that he, too, like Karen, would be more content to be left in peace. And that? That was one thing Matt could successfully do. One single, selfless accomplishment he could execute. And so he had.

As far as separations went, those ones were as close to graceful as Matt could attain.

But then there was Frank. Fucking interfering Frank. Dragging Foggy and Karen back into the quagmire of Matt's issues. Frank the frustrating moron with whom he disagreed, the enigma he couldn't dismiss. Frank the figure of tragedy. Frank the Punisher, possibly the most controversial, dangerous man in New York. Frank the grieving husband and father, looking for a family to protect. Finding it, maybe, in them.

Frank, whom Matt had kissed last night, and who didn't really act any differently today. Frank. The person whom Matt is definitely not bringing this subject up with ever again.

Fuck Frank, anyway.

 

~~~

 

“Do you think we're far enough away yet?” Foggy wonders aloud to Karen. “Like, he can only hear things like specific conversations if he's focusing, but do you think he's focusing on _us?_ And even if he is, like, we're a block away by now. That's pretty far. Right?”

“One second,” Karen says as she feels her cell vibrating against her leg. She's holding Foggy's hand, the way they've started to more and more often when they find themselves standing next to each other, and Karen still isn't sure how it happened but she's certainly far from complaining. Foggy's a great hand-holder, very supportive, and his palm never gets all sweaty like hers does. Rather than cease to swing their hands in time with their ambling steps Karen resorts to taking off her mitten with her teeth to dig the phone out of her jeans pocket, the wool turning damp and faintly frosty as it catches the warm cloud of her breath in the cold air.

Then she's stuck with the phone to her ear and a mouthful of wool keeping her from talking, but fortunately Foggy rescues her from her predicament and grabs the mitten. She spits out the lingering taste of wool and whispers a brief thanks before saying in her chirpy yet brisk phone voice, “Karen Page speaking.”

_“Yes, I can still hear you.”_

“Oh,” she says, surprised amusement overtaking her, and she drops her arm to relay to Foggy, “It's Matt, he says he can still hear us.”

 _“Snoop,”_ Foggy mutters darkly, shaking his head in exaggerated disapproval.

 _“Heard that, too,”_ says Matt, faultlessly, shamelessly blasé.

“He heard that too.”

“Because he is a snoopy snooper who snoops!” Foggy cries, righteously aggrieved. He shakes his fist at the sky, Karen's knitted mitten flopping around as though being strangled. “Hear that, Murdock? Hear _that?”_

 _“Yes,”_ Matt says smugly, and hangs up. Karen bursts into honest-to-god giggles.

“Super senses!” Foggy yells. “Ugh! Just... ugh!”

“No way around them,” Karen laughs.

“Not quite true,” Foggy says, handing her back her mitten. “He'll get bored or lose track of us eventually.”

“Let's be really boring and walk really far away, then,” Karen says decisively.

Which is precisely what they do, spending maybe half an hour just moseying along, chatting about subjects such as new and abominable flavors of ice cream which should constitute as crimes against nature and the human palate, and recounting to each other the latest cute cat videos they've each seen, complete with sound effects.

“We far enough away yet?” Karen asks, reminding him of the purpose they went out alone in the first place.

“Either that, or it's been long enough,” Foggy says. He sighs heavily. “This is... I actually want to have a serious talk.”

“Red Watch related,” Karen concludes, because she'd kind of guessed, and Matt and Frank had, too, judging by their knowing expressions as they watched Karen and Foggy depart for a “relaxing evening stroll” after several episodes of _Star Trek._ And by Matt's initial attempt at eavesdropping.

Foggy nods, and then makes a brief petulant face. “Can't believe it was  _Castle's_ Matt-mission name which stuck,” he mutters, presumably referring to Red Watch. 

Karen shrugs diplomatically. “It's a good name.”

“Yeah,” Foggy concedes, his mock sourness fading into a worrying moment of blankness before he shakes himself and smiles at her again, the expression bunching up cheeks reddened from exposure to the late fall chill and failing to fully reach his eyes. “So. Serious talk time.”

“You don't want to let him go back out there,” Karen says.

Foggy's smile drops off his face, which twists instead into a fretful scowl for a moment before he looks away and sighs gustily, reaching up to cover his lowered brow with a spread hand. “Agh. No. No, I don't. I mean, he still doesn't have anywhere to go. But he's gonna recover eventually, like, really soon, and be all, 'Oh, hey, you know what's better than dressing up as a devil and going out alone in the dead of night to beat the crap out of criminals with, like, _guns,_ who, like, _shoot at me?_ I know! Going out and then having no place safe or warm to sleep when I'm done with all the ass-kicking, or to hide my stupid costume, or to keep the _wounds_ I sustain in my _holy, angsty mission_ , oh, you know, _clean._ What an awesome idea! I'm a genius!' Do you blame me for being a little worried, Karen?”

“I'm worried too, Foggy.”

“Because _Matt_ is _worrying._ He _worries people._ But he's a grown man. Not, say, a toddler I can swaddle up in blankets and stick in a time-out corner to think about what he's done, or what he's going to do, or what he's probably _doing right now,_ or... or whatever. I am _not_ responsible for him, Karen.”

“Because he's a grown man.”

“Exactly!” Foggy exclaims, and he stops walking in order to collapse onto a nearby bench, one hand still held over his eyes, the other still in Karen's as she stands beside him. “He was always all... like, now I know he was keeping that humongous secret from me the entire time, but even now he still keeps himself to himself. When we're right there! Asking if he's okay! And also I think I'm being kinda clingy and controlling about this whole recuperation thing, which is completely, dickishly unfair to him given that _I'm_ the one who was breaking off the ridiculous dysfunctional mess of a stressful relationship we had going on because one of us has to be the healthy adult here, and, _also_ also, there's— I don't know, maybe I'm imagining it, there's some weird attraction-tension thing going on between... between... but anyways. Nope. We're talking about me and Matt right now. I love the guy but he's such a mess. Oh my god.

“But I, uh, I think I _love_ love him. And I have. For a while. And I should've told you before because you and he... and me and you... and you and me and... and... and the other dude which we are not talking about at present... this is so fucking complicated. It is way more complicated than it looks on the surface and everything sucks and I don't know what's happening and I might be blowing this out of proportion a little bit and also losing my mind. Am I losing my mind, Karen? Please tell me, oh god.”

The elderly woman sitting on the other end of the bench, frozen in the act of ripping apart a crust of bread for the little flock of pigeons crowding around her pointy-toed shoes, blinks several times very quickly, her eyes cartoonishly magnified behind her bifocals and her sparse white eyebrows slowly and inexorably rising up, clearly trying to disappear beneath the swooped brim of her big maroon hat with its fake flowers and large satiny bow.

Karen, eyes locked with the lady's, tries to school her horrified expression of secondhand embarrassment into something a little more warm and sane, waves hesitantly with an awkward little smile that's probably more of a grimace, and then insistently prods Foggy hard in the shoulder to get his attention.

“Ow, what?” he says, dropping his hand, and then follows her gaze. His confusion transfigures into abject mortification, his entire face turning a boiled-lobster scarlet which has nothing to do with the cold. “Oh, I'm,” he stammers, “I'm very sorry, miss. Uh, ma'am. Madam. To. Intrude.”

The woman blinks some more, owlish, and then abruptly explodes into a fit of wheezing laughter, the bread sent flying as she slaps at her skirt-bound knees.

“Oh god,” Foggy whispers, as the pigeons immediately mob the bread in a swirl of gray and white feathers. “Oh my god. This is the worst, most awful, _humiliating_ moment I've experienced in my entire life. Ever.”

Karen tries to stifle her snort, she really does, but Foggy still slowly swivels around to pin her with a desolately betrayed glare, and she has to cover her mouth with one hand as she frees the other from his death grip in order to pat his shoulder consolingly.

Off on her side the lady also pats his shoulder, and says, with a kindly, thoroughly amused sort of condescension, “You kiddos need some help.”

Foggy drops his head in defeat.

“Good luck,” she adds in parting as she pushes herself to her feet and settles the straps of her purse into the crook of her elbow. The pigeons part before her like the Red Sea before Moses as she shuffles away, whistling a warbling, merry tune.

“I think we made her day,” Karen remarks.

“At least someone has the will to go on,” Foggy mumbles, muffled against his jeans.

Karen walks around to sit beside him on the bench and slings an arm around his neck, pulling him to her. He rises with a grumble and they spend a minute staring off into the middle distance together. It's the closest they've been together since that time that Elena Cardenas made them dinner and set them up on an impromptu date in her apartment.

Karen feels a pang of pain at the memory, at the recollection of Elena's death, and a thin shiver of guilt at the way she'd asked Foggy if she could touch his face the way Matt must have once, and how, when she'd shut her eyes and reached her outstretched fingers towards him, she was for a moment imagining someone else in Foggy's place. Or, vicariously, someone else in her own.

“You have to give him his suit back eventually, Foggy.”

“Yeah. I _did_ actually wash it, not just steal it away to hold it hostage. And he hasn't asked for it back yet.” Foggy glances at her, tucking his hair behind his ear. She mirrors the gesture almost without thinking as he angles himself towards her. “I take it you talked with Frank.”

“He's pretty adamant about letting Matt do his own thing.”

“Even if his own thing is putting himself in an inordinate amount of danger and not taking care of himself.”

Karen shifts, trying to think of what would be best to say. Of what the best course of action is in this all-around shitty situation. “Like you said, he's an adult. He makes his own choices, even the fuck-awful ones. You _have_ to give his suit back.”

Foggy hisses out a sharp, impatient breath of displeasure. “I _know.”_

Karen holds a hand up to forestall him. “That doesn't mean that we're not his friends, or that we're abandoning him. Anything like that. It just means that we can't make his decisions for him. Frank's right in that Matt wouldn't take well to us dictating what he does and doesn't do. We wouldn't be his friends anymore if we did.”

Foggy leans back, digesting this. “I'm scared for him,” he admits. “I know that's selfish of me. Especially since I... like, it was my idea to dismantle Nelson and Murdock, and that law firm was our dream. _His_ dream. And... and we stopped going to Josie's. Stopped spending time together. Stopped talking. Stopped checking in, even. To see how he was doing. That was _my_ fault. _I_ let us all drift apart.”

“It was my fault, too,” Karen says, feeling like she can't let Foggy fall into a mire of misplaced guilt, putting all the blame on himself like Matt does, like... like the way _she_ had after Ben was killed. But Foggy only shakes his head.

“I've seen him when it was bad. Really bad. Back in college.” She notices that he's wringing his hands, chafing them together like they're cold. “He met this girl. Daughter of some foreign diplomat or ambassador or something, very wealthy, had ins with all the classy circles, drop-dead gorgeous. And a total wild card. Like, I could tell from the start that she was bad news. She had this... vibe, you know? Matt would go out all night with her. Hard drinking, partying, joyrides in sport cars, disturbance of the peace, all that jazz. He started slacking off. Failing classes.” He took in a deep breath. “Keep in mind this is _Matt_ we're talking about. His _real_ superpower is having the sense of responsibility of ten men and he ended up graduating summa cum laude. Total bookworm. Up to then he'd been nothing but quiet and studious. I mean, he... it was so sudden. A whirlwind romance, pretty much. Like an actual whirlwind. Like a tornado that just picked him right up and carried him off.”

Foggy swallowed hard, and Karen held him a little tighter, hoping he'd find it reassuring. “The thing is, now I realize that she _knew._ About everything. The senses, the... everything. She was back recently, you know. They weren't _back together,_ or anything, but she needed his help with the whole... ninjas. It's why he kept running off when we needed him.”

“Wait,” Karen says, remembering. “Was she... uh, kinda medium dark skin, high cheekbones, long, straight black hair?”

“Yeah,” Foggy says, looking surprised. “You met her?”

“I saw her,” Karen says, feeling an echo of past frustration, the moment when a sliver of doubt had lodged itself in her mind. “She was. Lying down. In Matt's bed.”

Foggy winces.

“There was some old blind guy there, too, the guy Matt said trained him, but I learned that _later._ Around then I just... I didn't get any answers, and I knew I wouldn't get any if I asked anyway, and at that point I was done. I didn't _want_ any. So I... left.”

“Huh,” Foggy says, a low, flat sort of sound, a neutral stopgap to show that he was thinking, taking it seriously.

Karen sniffs a little, telling herself it's just the chilliness, and says, “Tell me more of what you were saying. Matt running around and sowing his oats doesn't sound so bad. Dumb, maybe.”

“He was _super_ dumb,” Foggy agrees readily, without either consideration or force, as though his facetiousness was a reflex he had to indulge before getting back on topic. “All right, so, she knew all about him, and... he trusted her, I think. He loved her. And then...” Foggy shrugs, shakes his head. His hair tickles against the side of Karen's jaw. “She left.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like _that,”_ he says, snapping his fingers for emphasis. “I still don't know why. He wouldn't ever tell me. The point is, he came back to our dorm room, climbed straight into bed fully clothed, and didn't climb out again except to use the bathroom for two weeks.”

Karen breathes. Deep and even, like the roll of ocean waves, keeping the jagged unsteadiness growing behind her sternum at bay.

“What was her name?” Karen asks, finally.

“Elektra. With a 'k.'”

“Elektra,” Karen repeats, feeling the shape of the name in her mouth, remembering the woman with bright black eyes reclining on gray silk sheets, trying to imagine what sort of person she was, trying to decide whether she should hate her or not, and in the end Karen instead retreats into numbness and sets it all aside to think on later.

“Foggy?” she says, too tentatively. “Can you call Claire? See if she's free?”

“Outside opinion?” Foggy asks, smiling sheepishly. “That _would_ be pretty useful to have. Especially if we're planning on broaching—” he waves a hand— “the, uh, rest of it.”

“Outside opinion,” Karen confirms. “We _do_ need some help on this one.”

“Boy, do we ever.”

 

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

“Thank you god,” Foggy says, when they meet Claire inside the clinic which is her new place of work. He seriously owes her, like, a hundred gift baskets. The expensive ones with fancy artisan soap bars and flowers and the really _good_ Swiss chocolate truffles. 

“I usually just go by Claire,” she deadpans, leaning back against the receptions desk and crossing her arms. The young, cute black guy with incredibly fluffy hair sitting behind the desk chuckles without looking up from his crossword, twirling a sparkly blue gel pen over the newspaper propped on the ankle resting on his opposite knee. “You said this was an emergency?”

“Uh,” Foggy says, mouth open like a fish's as he tries to think of some way to put it. Some way which won't make her march them right back out the door. 

Not that she would, for as much as she pretends otherwise, Claire is also an utter badass saint. But still. There's no need to test her patience; it's strained enough on its own what with, y'know. Dealing with absolutely everybody's shit. 

“We just wanted to have a word. Personal issues, no, uh, medical emergencies,” Karen says smoothly. Karen's got his back. He'll be fine. 

“Yeah, it's about that, uh—” Foggy flicks his eyes to the cute receptionist and back to Claire's beautiful, stony face— “that mutual acquaintance of ours? The one into... extreme sports?” 

Claire sighs deeply and rolls her eyes towards the tiled ceiling, then half-turns in the direction of the receptionist guy and waves a hand between each of them to punctuate her introductions. “Foggy. Karen. This is Malcolm, a therapist here. He's been through hell and has his own vigilante to worry about. You can talk freely in front of him.” 

Malcolm looks up sharply, startled, and then throws himself a little too fast to his feet as he leans across the desk to shake their hands. The chair rolls back and hits a filing cabinet with a clang, the gel pen and newspaper haphazardly thrown onto the desk. “Oh. Oh, hello. Uh...” His smile is noticeably failing to mask his sudden manic nervousness, his eyes showing the whites as he cuts them towards the door behind them. 

“Hey, whoa, cool down, we're here to talk about our dumb-ass buddy Daredevil with Claire, not interrogate anyone,” Foggy hurries to say, as the guy pumps his hand with too much vigor. 

The guy, Malcolm, freezes, and then releases Foggy's hand and sinks back into his chair, rolling it back up to the desk and making himself smaller, his burst of energy subsiding into a rueful resignation which sits quiet and natural on the stoop of his shoulders. He chuckles again, rubbing the back of his head, combing through his glorious poof of hair. “Sorry about that. I get... jumpy, sometimes.” His fingers begin fiddling with his pen, worrying at the edge of his paper, interlocking and writhing free and interlocking again. 

Karen bends down, says, "Can I?" with her hands hovering over his fidgety ones. He looks up, and at his nod she covers them with her own, stilling them, and smiles. “I know a little about jumpiness,” she confides, something brittle lurking behind her soft, warm tone, yet another secret Foggy is not privy to. Something pierces him deep at the thought, uncertainty and concern stabbing straight through his heart like a stiletto knife. “It's fine.” 

Malcolm stares searchingly for a few long seconds before breaking her gaze in another nod, his eyes downcast, but he begins to smile in return. “Daredevil, huh?” he says. 

“He's a pain,” Foggy affirms. 

“And often  _in_ pain,” Karen adds, straightening up and bumping Foggy's shoulder with her own sharp, narrow one, silently touching base. He's not sure which one of them she's reassuring. 

“You said this wasn't a medical issue,” Claire reminds them. 

“No,” Karen says, “it isn't. We just... needed to talk to someone else about him. Someone who knows everything.” 

“He being a hardheaded loner idiot?” Malcolm asks, folding his own arms across his chest like a second, slouching Claire. 

“Kinda,” Foggy says, his eyebrows twitching up. “How'd you know?” 

“'My' vigilante's also got that sort of thing down pat,” he explains dryly, shaking his head and idly spinning his chair from side to side with gentle nudges of his feet. “She  _knows_ she needs people. A safety net, right? But she still...  _acts_ like she doesn't, sometimes. We're working on training her out of it.” 

“It's slow going,” Claire says flatly. 

“Wait,” Foggy says, because something's tugging at his attention. A hunch. “Is she Jessica Jones? By any chance?” 

“Yeah, actually,” Malcolm says. “You know her?” 

“Kinda,” Foggy says. “She works for the law firm I joined so I've seen her in passing. And also we got trapped in an elevator once.” 

“Oh?” Malcolm says, leaning forward with morbid curiosity. “And how did that go?” 

“He  _means,_ 'how are you alive,'” Claire snidely clarifies. 

Karen turns expectantly towards him, intrigued. 

“Well, she was hungover and cranky but I kept the situation calm and passed the time with my unparalleled voice impressions of  _Sesame Street_ characters. After about two minutes she made me let her stand on my shoulders so she could rip the emergency hatch open and climb up the cables or something else totally  _Die Hard,_ and then she harangued everyone until they got the elevator running again and rescued me. I could hear her snapping invective at them all the way down the shaft.” Foggy hadn't heard cursing that imaginative since the last time he'd played cards with Bess Mahoney. It was impressive. “Afterwards she gave me a card for her detective biz, in case I ever needed it. She was nice.” 

“You thought she was nice,” Malcolm repeats, incredulous delight creeping over his features. 

“Yup. A very nice lady,” Foggy affirms, and Malcolm laughs in disbelief. 

“Don't ever tell her that,” he says. “She's got a reputation to maintain and she's very particular about it.” 

“I will keep that in mind.” 

“Aw, man, I wanna meet her, too,” Karen mumbles forlornly. “She sounds so cool.” 

“She's... complicated,” Claire says diplomatically. “Has a lot of issues.” 

“Speaking of,” Foggy says. 

“Right,” says Karen, making her hands into fists and bending them up towards her shoulders with a little shake of determination. “About  _Matt.”_

“Matt being Daredevil?” Malcolm asks. 

“Indeed. Foggy and I need some major advice, and we would really,  _really_ appreciate it if you'd lend us some. Please.” 

Claire heaves another sigh and pushes off from the desk. “The clinic's done with today's appointments and we're the only ones here, so we might as well get comfortable. Break room's this way.” 

“You coming, Malcolm?” Karen asks hopefully. Foggy wonders why she wants the guy around so much, seeing as he doesn't actually have anything to really do with Matt, but... but the guy is just soothing, somehow. When he's not freaking out. He's probably got a good head on his shoulders, to be working alongside Claire. Yeah. Yeah, he seems like the sort of person you'd want around when you're swamped in emotional quandaries and need a compassionate outside perspective. 

Foggy finds himself smiling at Malcolm right along with Karen, and Malcolm groans. “Those faces. Fine. Fine, I'm coming.”

“Yay!” Karen exclaims, clapping quietly, just with her fingertips. 

“Thanks,” Foggy tells Malcolm, trying to make sure that his gratitude shows up in his expression instead of doing that thing where it just looks like he's being glibly sarcastic when he isn't, and privately adds Malcolm to his mental Friends Who Know About Matt's Daredevil Thing list. It's a pretty short list, but, what with it being an incriminating secret and all, that's probably for the best. 

They settle into the break room, taking off their jackets and plopping into chairs as Claire goes off to one side to get the coffee machine to cooperate and supply them with some good ole caffeine. 

“What's he done now?” Claire asks without turning around. 

Foggy shoots a helpless glance at Karen, who raises both hands palms-up in an helpless gesture. Malcolm watches the interaction with his brow furrowed and mouth quirked, then prompts, “Is it not so much what he's  _done,_ but how things around him  _are?”_

Foggy snaps and points at him.  _“Yes._ That exactly. Exactly that.” 

Karen droops back to thunk her head against the fortunately cushioned backrest of her chair. “He's just— okay, so, I dated him. Kind of? For a bit.” 

“Uh huh,” Malcolm says, looking increasingly apprehensive as to where this was going, likely due to realizing that this didn't involve superheroes punching stuff so much as it did some dreaded  _romantic entanglements._

“And it was going really well, except for how we... well, I didn't know about Daredevil then. And for my part I was going around doing my own research and not telling anybody because I didn't want them to worry. Or try to stop me, or anything, seeing as I may have a predilection for getting myself into life-and-limb-threatening trouble. But that's my prerogative, and he kept running out when Foggy and I needed him, and then we broke up. And then a while after that he told me about Daredevil, and then. Um. We hadn't been talking until Frank came to me about his behavior, how he was putting himself in danger, and me and Foggy and Frank all banded together to try and help him out. We've been meeting a lot to talk even before we pulled Matt in so you, Claire, could give him a checkup. Which you know, 'cause you met Frank when that happened and we warned you in advance, but anyways..." She pauses, glancing self-consciously at Malcolm at the amount of exposition before forging onwards. "I clicked with Foggy right away, way back. And Frank's... he's saved my life. He means... I don't know how or when, but he means an incredible amount to me, along with Foggy and Matt.”

“I feel pretty much the same,” Foggy contributes. “And they probably do, too. Though I think everyone but Frank is freaking confused as frack about it. And Frank is... has is own. Stuff. To deal with.” 

“We've all been spending almost the whole last week together,” Karen goes on, increasingly haltingly, her cheeks beginning to flush rosy with either shyness or embarrassment as she plucks at the ends of her hair. “Matt, too. Just hanging out at my place. Trying to get Matt to take care of himself.  _Bonding._ All of us. So, well, since then...” 

“Since then,  _feelings_ have gotten involved,” Foggy says, shuddering.  _“Mushy, omnidirectional_ feelings.” 

“Wait,” Claire says, pivoting around, propping herself against the wall with a thud, and beginning to glare. “Rewind. 'Frank.'” She crosses her arms again. “As in Frank Castle?” 

“As in  _the Punisher?”_ Malcolm cries, aghast. “Your guys' multi-crush includes  _the Punisher?”_

“Er. Yeah?”

“He's not actually that bad a guy, once you get to know him,” Karen rushes to defend. She pauses. Considers. Tacks on the addendum, “So long as he doesn't think you deserve to die, or anything.” 

Malcolm has gone kind of ashy in shock, and Claire is just pinching the bridge of her nose as though trying to stave off a headache with minimal success. 

“He generally only thinks you deserve to die if you're scum of the earth or something,” Foggy says, rather weakly. 

“He has a  _code,”_ says Karen. “He doesn't just go around slaughtering people.” 

“Well, he  _does_ go around slaughtering, but only, uh... he only slaughters  _specific_ people.” Karen kicks his leg and Foggy decides to shut up for the time being. 

“Specific, bad, scum-of-the-earth people. Never innocents,” Karen says, with finality, and then she seals her lips and shuts up, too. 

The fluorescent lights buzz on and on overhead. The coffeemaker gurgles obnoxiously. Malcolm continues to goggle at them. 

Claire, eyes scrunched tightly closed and fingers still pinched between them, sighs even more heavily than previously, which is a feat considering that the usual sighs which she utilizes to express her fatigue or exasperation with any given situation already tend to occur with alarming frequency and intensity, or at least they do whenever Foggy has been in earshot.  _This_ sigh stands out even more, a cut above, eloquently conveying an absolute sense of  _done_ -ness with the world and everything in it, and with Foggy, Karen, and Matt's idiocy in particular. Possibly also with regards to Frank's very existence and the inherent difficulties and dangers thereof. 

“Okay,” she says, brusque but calm. “I'm going to ask you two something, and you're going to answer me honestly.” 

“Sure,” Foggy agrees, too perkily, and wilts like the beautiful but delicate flower he is when she opens her eyes to fix him with a quelling  _look._

“Do you trust him?” 

“Yes,” Karen says, immediately, without a jot of hesitation. Frank has confided in her, put himself in the line of fire for her, had gifted her his trust and his protection and has earned hers in return. Karen knows him, now. Well enough that their faith in each other goes deep, like roots planted down far enough to let the tree above weather the storm, her answer coming almost instinctively. 

Foggy opens his mouth to echo her, and then stops himself, letting the question replay in his head. 

Does he? Trust Frank? 

The first time he met Frank he'd been scared shitless even though the guy was cuffed and strapped down to a hospital bed for a reason, his face an ugly patchwork of purple and sallow green, empty-eyed, lying there like he didn't care if he lived or died. It'd been Matt's great idea to defend him. Matt, with his whole life-is-precious, justice-must-be-enforced spiel, the one woven right into his very DNA, the argument Matt always made and which Foggy couldn't refute without losing Matt in the process. It was Karen's idea, too, with her indomitable drive to unearth the truth and bring it to light, her desire to see fairness and compassion enacted. 

Foggy had looked at the man under the single bright bar of harsh white illumination which hung over the head of his bed like a spotlight from heaven, though he couldn't tell whether it was a halo highlighting the possibility for redemption, something deserving of mercy within the battered figure resting heavily supine beneath it, or whether it served as an unsympathetic rebuke to Castle's presence, glaring down and laying bare every action of which he was guilty. Matt, with his infinitely more intimate grasp of celestial matters, might've been able to tell him, had his blindness not precluded his participation in the metaphor. And had Foggy not already known which answer Matt would give him anyway. 

Matt had run out on them— was that the first time?— just after Frank accepted them as his lawyers. That was also the first time Foggy saw Matt kiss Karen, on the cheek as he was leaving the hospital, and for some reason even though Foggy had known it was coming, and hell, he'd been encouraging it 'cause god knew those two deserved something nice for once, he still felt like the rug had been pulled out from under him. Sorta... selfishly saddened. 

He kept trundling along, though, trying to do his job and make Castle's case, but was it ever difficult when Matt was still lying about the identity and activities of his slightly unhinged “rich client” ex-girlfriend and ditching them every chance he got, while Frank wouldn't open up to anyone but Karen, after she first shoved the photograph of his family in his face and practically dared him to help her set the story straight. 

And then Matt was too late to deliver his own opening statement because he was off with Elektra punching shady corporations in the face or something and Foggy had to stand up in front of the court room with his useless last-minute note cards in the wake of a long, anxious night spent cramming his head with details of the Punisher rampage, picture after picture of blood-spattered corpses, neatly typed pages of autopsy reports, bullet trajectories, mental health speculations, and the split-second, world-wrenching horror Frank and his family had undergone as recounted to Foggy by Karen, her voice muted and her eyes shining like gritty blue diamonds in a drawn and pale visage. 

He'd made a few false starts, addressing the jury and the courtroom at large. Looked back at Frank Castle in his short-sleeved orange jumpsuit and manacles, his elbows braced wide on the metal table provided to him, dark, hooded, direct eyes watching him back within their fading raccoon-mask circles of bruising, the short fringe of his hair brushed forwards to lie flat over his forehead. He'd remembered what Karen had asked of him, the night before.  _Okay,_ she'd said.  _Just for a minute, try... try to be Frank Castle._ And in that silent courtroom he'd looked away again, stepping out from behind the table with his eyes fixed unseeingly on the floor, and said, “Okay. So. You're nineteen...” 

Foggy doesn't make gut decisions, or try to be a savior. He doesn't act out of some higher calling which nestles within his heart and thrums at the frequency of his pulse. He's not Matt, with his belief in a higher power, with his so-called devil inside which spurs him on to do bad things in the name of good. And he's not Karen, who latches onto things like a pit bull and shakes until the facts come tumbling out, who can seemingly walk through the dirtiest filth with a lion's courage and emerge again clean. Sure, he walks into danger like a complete fool himself, sometimes, but he does it because he's  _thought it through,_ because he needs information, corroboration, because there's no other way. It's never his first recourse. He's the plucky sidekick, the comic relief, not the block-headed horned hero, or the lady love interest who's the driving force behind the scenes, or the antihero who dips a little too close to villainy at times. He's just Foggy. At best, a plot device. 

But he's had time to mull this one particular question over. He's had time to formulate a gut feeling, and has had time to come to terms with it, too. Maybe it's because he's not the main protagonist, because he isn't one of those hapless people caught in confusing middle of that craziness which has been life in Hell's Kitchen ever since a portal in the sky opened and spat out chaos, death, and destruction while he and Matt were in the middle of Torts class. Maybe that's why he can see the bigger picture just a little clearer. He already... kinda  _has_ an outside perspective. 

And unlike Matt, he can come to grips with his own wayward feelings, bring his opinions harmoniously under their sway, and not suffer from a crushing load of Catholic guilt doing it. He's just gotta say it out loud. 

Frank's saved Karen. He's saved Matt. And Foggy thinks that if it came down to it, he'd pull Foggy's fat out of the fire, too. Underneath it all Frank Castle really is a good man. 

And Foggy is crushing harder than a twelve-year-old girl. 

“Yeah,” he says to his expectant audience, clearing his throat. “Yeah, I trust him. All the way.” 

“Then I'm gonna believe you,” says Claire, as the coffeemaker finishes up. She turns to grab some ceramic mugs from the little cupboard above the sink. “I say go ahead and try. If you can make it work with all four of you, good on you. Congratulations on the miracle. Remember: honest communication is key. Condoms are important too, but—” she clunks the mismatched set of mugs onto the counter and starts pouring coffee into the first— “seriously, talk it through if that's the road you want to go down. Make sure everyone's on the same page every step of the way rather than waiting for it to magically happen on its own. The flying-blind approach ends in grievous misunderstandings.” 

“Thank you, Claire,” says Karen, genuinely heartfelt. 

“You  _sure?”_ Malcolm presses, leaning anxiously forward on the edge of his seat. “You're  _sure_ you're safe with him?” 

“Absolutely,” Karen says in a tone which brooks no disagreement. 

Foggy finds himself smiling with a touch of black humor. “Although I can definitively inform you that anyone trying to harm any of  _us_ in  _any_ way is automatically rendered vastly  _un_ safe with Frank around watching out for us.” 

Malcolm takes in a deep breath with the familiarity of a man well-versed in self-calming techniques. “He still kills people.” 

“Which is certainly bad,” Foggy allows, “but, not to make light of it, it's kind of a separate issue.” 

“And he hasn't been hunting anyone down, recently,” Karen says. “His spree killings are behind him.” Because, she fails to say, almost everyone Frank wanted dead now  _is_ dead. Problem solved. 

Malcolm still looks extremely doubtful, to put it mildly, but he nods. “All right. But if anything goes sour, any little thing, call me up and I'll rope in Jessica. Or just call her directly. Just... don't get yourselves stuck in a bad situation. Please.”

There's something bright and pained in his plea and Foggy is struck again by how old a soul Malcolm seems, how yearning and deserving of peace he is. “I promise. Got Miss Jones' card right in my wallet. If there's ever a lick of trouble I will not hesitate to use anything and everything at my disposal to get out of it.” 

Malcolm seems relieved at the proclamation, smiling and dropping his eyes off to the side, more relaxed. 

“Matt's the one who's been hectically active of late,” Karen muses after a moment, worry tinging her observation. 

Malcolm taps his fingers against the arm of his chair and glances back up, solemn. “Yeah, heard about that. His movements were splattered all over the tabloids. They've caught him on camera all over the place, all the time. I though it wasn't too safe for the whole secret identity thing to be out in daylight but it just kept escalating. He's been kicking up more and more of a buzz until about a week ago.” 

“That would be when he was dragged to me for a diagnosis and I ordered him to rest and recover from the severe influenza-turning-pneumonia he was letting ravage his body unabated,” Claire cuts in, handing out cups of coffee. She sits down across from them, next to Malcolm, and crosses her legs, blowing cautiously at her own steaming mug. “The man has zero self-preservation instincts.” As an aside she mutters, “We're out of sugar and the jug of creamer in the mini fridge's probably spoiled, wouldn't risk it. Sorry.” 

“He was out and about getting into fights when he had  _pneumonia?”_ Malcolm inquires, plainly at a loss. 

“With his set of abilities, I'm still shocked he was able to tell up from down. I'll tell you about our first meeting sometime. It involved me fishing him out of a dumpster.” 

“A dumpster?” Karen repeats, an evil smile spreading across her features. 

“And I thought Jessica's awful decision-making skills were a special case,” Malcolm says, rubbing his forehead. “Wow. Silly me.” 

“The thing is,” Foggy says, recapturing their attention and making Karen's mischievous smile waver and then disappear, “Matt's going to go back out there when he's better, and he's gonna keep on making those same stupid choices. He's been spiraling, for some reason, and I thought it was just because we fell out of touch with him and he had no one to care for, or to care for him. I thought if we reminded him... he'd, I don't know, snap out of it. These last few days have been great, but he's still... this is like a time-out. A rest period. Nothing's actually changed. And I don't know what's wrong or how to fix it.” He stops, because he's started to get choked up a little and he lives with enough embarrassment already, thank you. 

Karen sets her free hand on his back and rubs it in a soothing circular motion, resting her mug on her knee with her free hand. He lets himself sink into it and takes sip of his own coffee, scowls at the heat and the bitterness. “Do you have any idea why he might be... doing this to himself?” Karen asks Claire. “There has to be a reason, right?” 

Claire sets her coffee down on a little side table and laces her fingers together, pursing her lips. “I'm sorry to say, but you might have a better idea of what could have set this off.” 

Karen takes in a shaky breath, the movement of her hand halting on Foggy's back. “Elektra,” she says, gentle and tremulous, like she's afraid the name will break something when she lets it into the air. 

Foggy jerks upright, sloshing scalding coffee onto his wrist and barely noticing through the sudden roar of realization in his ears. “It's Elektra. It's Elektra leaving him again.” Just like before. 

“Who's this Elektra?” Malcolm asks. 

“She was his girlfriend in college,” Foggy says, mind whirling. He almost loses his balance by leaning down to set his coffee mug on the floor so his arms are free to wave around in urgent gesticulations. “They were really close. Codependent, almost. He once said to me, and I  _quote,_ 'No one has ever embraced me for who I really am as much as she has.' Unquote. Totally head over heels for each other, seriously, the levels of pet names and PDA alone. The dizzyingly happy honeymoon period was followed by a terrible breakup, followed by a recent visit from her right around when everything went to shit. And now, clearly, she's gone again, and this time it's even  _worse._ I didn't think that was even  _possible.”_

“Foggy,” Karen says, and her hand is utterly still, hovering so lightly against the starched fabric of his shirt he almost can't feel it. “Do you remember what Frank yelled at him. That first night when Matt surprised us in my apartment.” 

Foggy feels himself go still as well, a chill running through him and leaving him hollow as he remembers. As he finally understands. “He said Matt was hurting, because. He said to him, 'You lost her.'” 

“Elektra's dead,” Karen whispers. 

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads-up: angst ahoy. Warnings for that suicidal ideation tag and implied depression. And also descriptions of Catholicism which I really hope are accurate, seeing as I'm not Catholic and mostly just pestered my dad, the former altar boy, with a few inane questions to bolster my internet skimming, so if I've gotten anything wrong or have offended in any way, please drop me a line and let me know! That goes for anything else I've messed up horribly on, too. So. Anyways.

The church is imbued with the faded scents of sharp, spicy incense and melted wax, the mustiness of old, dry wood beneath its slick, chemical-null coat of sealant. Aged paper and dust, some inexplicable notes of citrus. The mellow stream of outside city air coming in through the arched double doors and tall stained glass windows and every nook and cranny, the even mellower traces of fresh water lurking beneath. Cool, smooth plaster over brick; iron fixtures just old enough to oxidize around the seams and screws. The trees and grass and fertilized soil of the yard without, though all the flowers are long withered on the stalk, the plants drying of sap as they shed their leaves, ready for the winter, the once-lush foliage cast down to rot into the earth, damp and dewy, now undercut with the cold-water blankness of frost which he can hear trickling as it melts over the course of the day. The rich coffee beans within, emanating from that prized coffee machine in the back room. Steam. Clean cloth; linen, and thick, fine fabric edged with creakingly crisp stitches of embroidery thread which was well cared for, starched and ironed, the laundry detergent a cheap but decent brand. Faint, blandly soured traces, particles, really, of unleavened Communion wafers which have escaped the vacuum around the edges of altar to go stale, and the solitary spot of spilled red wine which has sunk into the thick, coarse carpet in the aisle, all the way through to the flagstones beneath, as well as the remnants of baking soda ingrained over it. Sunlight, dappled into different temperatures and patterns across his skin by the mosaics they pass through. If he passes his hand slowly beneath the light he can almost map out the pictures, imagine the different colors, decipher the stories suspended in holy air.

When the pews are full he hears the joints creaking under the weight of the faithful, the shuffle of shoe soles and stiff church clothes, respectfully subdued whispers, the rustle of hymnal pages, the thrum of vocal chords vibrating, tongues and lips shaping voice into song, the sound waves bouncing against the walls and high ceiling and back again in echoes which sweep through the open areas of the building, making clearer to him the denser negative spaces which are solid objects, separate bodies. Where all else must hear silence but for the hypnotic rise-and-fall, almost casual rhythms of Father Lantom's Sunday sermon, Matt hears a multitude of tides, heartbeats, slow and soothed, pushing blood through the intricately structured webs of circulatory systems, and underneath the omnipresent hum of electricity in the walls he can sense the minute flex of every uniquely shaped pane of window glass as it reacts to the almost imperceptible shifts in barometric pressure created by the expansion and contraction of many lungs, drawing in breath, and then releasing it, as the listening people are carried up into a trance-like state of belief and reflection as the ritual of Sunday mass washes over them in a refreshing wave, a cleansing of spirit. For upholding this pure and simple code of higher ethics there is in turn a promise pledged, an assurance which may be held close to one's breast come humdrum mundanity or come the unknowable event horizon of death: _you are not alone. You are cared for. You are loved._

Matt doesn't know why he finds it so hard, sometimes, to simply sit in the house of God, and to allow himself this one thing. This one, all-encompassing reassurance which he feels, deep down, to be precious beyond his ken, this one truth which should be as steady within him as magnetic north and yet which sometimes, somehow, drifts, just a little, out of kilter, the interference of his own incontrovertibly sullied self spinning the needle of the compass out of alignment, hiding from him the path he should take.

Today he goes through the motions robotically, listens to the sermon with barely half an ear, recites, kneels, stands, sits, and crosses himself as necessary, all as the black, yawning emptiness which has long ago burrowed into the crack in his soul inches ever wider, bit by bit. He thinks at some point it'll gape open too far and he'll end up falling through it, swallowed whole, reduced to nothing. He thinks, when the time comes, that he won't even be able to bring himself to scrabble for a handhold on the way down.

He does not go up to receive Communion. He does not even try to sing.

As the rest of the congregation files out afterwards, Father Lantom standing beside the door to mingle with his departing flock, Matt unfolds his cane, slides out into the aisle, and walks to the vestibule which holds the rack of votive candles, ascending in staggered levels like lines of stadium seats. They smell pleasantly of beeswax, the singed wicks of braided cotton, and oily smoke which slides down smoothly and sticks thickly within the nose and throat. He reaches out to the statue of the Virgin Mary presiding over the candles and hovers over her draped figure, her downcast face, her hands held pressed together in prayer, without touching, before he stoops for the out-of-the-way box of long matches.

He selects one, ignites it with a hard, scraping flick of his thumbnail, listens to the hiss of the phosphorous reacting to the oxidizing agent of the potassium chlorate when the friction forces the molecules against each other, bursting into a dancing twist of gaseous heat which licks upward at the end of the match, oddly water-like, eminently more insubstantial and yet far more apparent to Matt's senses. It diffuses more into pure heat the further away it is from its meager fuel source, where there is more oxygen for it to take in and the combustion process is purer, making the flame's most intense point that which crowns it, a smudged corona like a halo. The fire flares up before it settles into stability and begins creeping down the matchstick, charring the wood, and when he holds it to the waxy wick of one of the unlit votive candles it crawls that way, too, a tiny, living, hungry thing.

Out of everything Matt experiences in his “world on fire,” the three-sixty degree, three-dimensional collage his brain has learned to patch together from the ceaseless stream of vying sensory data constantly and insistently buffeting him, the thing he is able to perceive most similarly to how he did when he was sighted happens to be, almost ironically, actual fire. It still burns with undivided brightness to him, even though he can no longer truly see its light.

Matt draws the match away, separating the single flame into wavering twins, brings the original between the shield of his cupped palm and his mouth and extinguishes it with the sigh of his breath, the wet carbon dioxide exhalation of true life snuffing out its facsimile with nary a whimper, its thin whoosh falling silent, sputtering into a slender gust of strong smoke which makes his eyes water.

He tries to tell himself that the smoke is the only reason that tears prick at his eyes, a futile, fleeting effort. He thinks of Elektra. Allows himself, just for a moment, just for _this_ moment, to acknowledge her death. As he bows his head. And prays for her.

 

~~~

 

Matt manages to slip unnoticed past Father Lantom and make his way outside without having to yet again deflect his priest's _possibly_ somewhat warranted concern. Without having to admit that he's still not ready to talk with him. He thinks Lantom doesn't even realize Matt has left the church, so stealthily does he make his retreat. Matt is putting his hard-won ninja skills to good use. The fine art of sneaking around, or: one thing Matt Murdock does kind of right and with depressing frequency.

Frank is waiting for him, in a flimsy disguise composed merely of a baseball cap and what Matt regretfully deduces to be aviators, sitting on one of the stone benches out front with a couple coffees in hand. He stands and gives one to Matt as he draws even with him, and they begin to walk away side by side. Over a tank top too thin for the weather he's also wearing that corduroy jacket with the motor oil spot rather than his now signature leather coat. It's far too small, straining at the seams around the shoulders, so much so that he didn't even try to button it. Matt can hear the stitches threatening to give way around the shifting muscles of his arms, and a lady in the churchyard blaspheming and fanning herself as she catches sight of him right before they round the corner.

“I oughta warn ya. They're both waitin' to ambush you back home.”

Matt sips at his coffee through the tiny slit in the disposable plastic lid because he can't risk staining one of the few articles of nice clothing he'd thought to take out of his old place before everything was repossessed, although he slurps up almost as much air as he does liquid. He comforts himself with the fact that at least Frank, with his average human olfactory system, probably can't pick up the unpleasant plasticky smell which now clings to his clothes, courtesy of the garbage bags he now stows them in to keep them from smelling of worse things. “When have you begun to consider Karen's apartment 'home?'”

“You're leaving tonight, aren't you?” Frank asks, eyes on conversational target, refusing to be derailed.

Matt tips his face up towards the meager warmth of the sun, pushes his glasses up as he does so even though he needs not shade his eyes. The sweep of the cane, the tap against the concrete at the end of each low arc, is muscle memory so ingrained he'd probably do it in his sleep, if he ever took to sleepwalking at night rather than crime-fighting. It's a relief to be able to just rely on his cane and Frank's presence, to focus on shutting down his senses so that he can draw into himself like a sea creature into its shell. “I left this morning.” To get clothes for church. To _go_ to church. 

He'd thought that maybe today he'd be able to finally get himself to speak with Father Lantom, but. Well. It hadn't panned out. 

“You know what I mean. Your buddy's bringing your costume over today, and I'm bettin' you're gonna take it and run.” 

Matt dredges up a smirk. “You make me sound like a selkie with its coat of fur. Yearning for the sea.” 

“If the sea were this stinkin' hellhole of a city and swimmin' in it was waging a one-man war with no backup as far away from your friends as you can get, then yeah. Sure, Red. You're a seal maiden about to snatch her skin back.” He cuffs Matt on the shoulder, not hard enough to make Matt anywhere near worried for his coffee, but not quite playfully so, all the same. “Good for you.” 

“And good riddance, I'd imagine.” 

“See, that's what you think. Those two waitin' to leap down your throat the second you open the door and convince you otherwise? Well they think differently, and believe you me, those two're the smart ones.” 

“They'll be better off without me,” Matt says. Because it's the truth. Because this is his second chance to make a clean break and to make it  _stick_ this time. 

Frank scoffs, maybe at his certainty, maybe because he was all set to scoff at whatever Matt decided to say next no matter what it was. "Again,  _they_ think differently. And for the record, counselor, all the rest of us who have half the sense your good Lord gave to geese think differently, too.” 

Matt bites his tongue all the way to Karen's apartment, too tired to start the fight before he needs to. 

 

~~~

 

Matt sits in his usual seat. Karen and Foggy again take the couch, and Frank stations himself behind them, far enough away not to loom. Matt wonders if he will pretend to take little interest in the proceedings. How long it'll take for him to explode, like last time. The Daredevil uniform is crammed into a cardboard box at Foggy's feet. It smells of Foggy's detergent.

Matt keeps his glasses on.

“Talk,” Matt says, softly, because he can hear the way Foggy's breathing keeps hitching as he holds in his words, can smell an excess of saline in his eyes, sense the way that Karen is sitting unnaturally still and stiff, her heart beginning to hammer her distress.

“Matt,” Karen says, equally soft, “we know about Elektra.”

For some reason he expects hearing her name aloud to hurt, for some physical pain to rip through him, stab into him like that poison arrow to the shoulder, for it to clog up his nose and restrict his breathing like the stench of a boy's spilled lifeblood, but he feels... empty. Disappointed in himself, somehow.

No. No, he knows exactly how.

“Did you tell them?” he asks Frank, and Frank shakes his head in something akin to, but which isn't, disgust. Matt can't tell what Frank is really expressing and finds he does not care.

“We figured it out on our own,” Foggy says. His voice is thin and uneven. Unbalanced, like the way he's leaning on the couch, towards Matt and out of his own equilibrium where he should stay. “Why didn't you _tell_ us?” His tone is an open wound gashed into the air. A scar, reopened, yet again. Betrayed. Bereft. “Why do you _lie_ about these things? To _me?”_

“It was a lie only in omission, Foggy. I just... I just didn't. Mention it.” 

“Shut the fuck up, Matt,” Karen says, and of all of them it is  _Frank_ who makes a sound of protest, a quiet  _Hey,_ unfolds his arms as though to reach out and rein her in, remind her, before he refolds them without another word and lets her go on. “You told me your whole life story when you told me you were Daredevil, your  _whole past,_ and yet you just left her out. Not because she wasn't important. From what I gather she was one of the most special people you ever knew. But you just  _omitted_ her because you didn't want to admit your  _grief_ in  _losing_ her. Because, what, you didn't want to fend off any offers of help? How in God's name is that healthy? How is that even remotely excusable? I don't get it, Matt.” 

Matt sighs through his nose, feels his lungs shrinking, his ribs collapsing inwards. Threatening to slip into the pit behind his sternum. That nothing place nibbling at his edges. “I couldn't put that on you.” 

“Well, too late, because it's all already on us,” Foggy snaps. “That's what friends are  _for._ We  _support_ one another. We're  _honest,_ or at least we  _try,_ and we ask each other for  _help_ when we need it. We — oh, for the love of, of, ugh,” he interrupts himself, because Matt is shaking his head in negation. 

“It doesn't have to work like that.” 

“It  _should,”_ Foggy says sharply, and slumps down over his knees, putting his head into his hands. 

“None of you  _deserve_ that,” Matt says, gently, even though he's frustrated at having to repeat this yet  _again,_ the repetition rubbing his hackles against the grain, because how can none of them understand this one, simple thing? Why can none of them just  _get this through their heads?_

“What?” Karen snarls. “None of us deserve to help you with that holy cross of survivor's guilt you're bearing? We aren't _worthy_ _enough_ to take some of the weight off your back?” 

“That's not what I meant,” Matt says. It feels like there's an anvil sitting on his chest, and it's a struggle even to work up the energy to speak. He's so, so tired. 

“Then what did you mean?” she asks scathingly, the worry pounding in her pulse camouflaged by a righteous, protective rage which can only be directed at the very object which has inspired her concern in the first place. Like she thinks she can just bully him into giving a shit for himself.

“You don't... you're too  _good_ to be inflicted with  _my pain,”_ Matt says, and there is an answering echo of anger resonating within him, now that he's confronted with hers. “And you  _didn't want it,_ anyways.”

“Oh, because we fell out of touch?” Her hands are twisting in her lap, her throat clicking as she suppresses some massive emotion which makes her breath stutter and her teeth grit, her sarcastic tone beginning to go brittle, crumbling.

“Exactly,” Matt says. “We had a moment of clarity. We  _let_ it happen because it was the right thing to do.” 

Foggy suddenly lifts his head and shouts,  _“That doesn't mean we'd want you to go off and die.”_

There is a hush which follows, Karen and Frank both taken aback, Foggy's hands held just over his thighs and curled into claws which face the ceiling as though trying to hold something up, and into that lull, Matt, with a bitter, disingenuous smile, says, “Doesn't it?” 

The shock which meets his assertion is palpable. It probably would be even to someone without super senses. 

Matt is instantly plunged into guilt, as though he'd been splashed in the face with a bucket of icy water, adrenaline crackling through his body and cold sweat breaking out clammy over his skin, but he can't take the words back, can't pluck them from where they writhe like dying snakes between them all and shove them back down his own throat to choke on their venom. All he can do is dig his teeth into his lower lip until he tastes iron, set his jaw, and stand by what he's said. 

Frank, low, and gravelly, and gravely, says, “You take that back, Red. You take that the fuck back.” 

“I meant it,” murmurs Matt, without inflection. “I thought they would appreciate the honesty.” Honesty is, after all, what they had  _wanted._ Be careful what you wish for, right? 

“You  _are_ blamin' them now? Sayin' they might as well have said 'go off yourself?' That what you're doin'?” 

“No. I was  _reminding_ them of what they really feel. Of the choice they made. To leave me alone. I'm saying it was the right one.” Just look at how much he can hurt them with only a few words. Just look at the harm he can do. The harm he's already done. 

Maybe now they will finally see. 

_“Fuck you,”_ Karen hisses furiously, shivering, tears sliding down her cheeks, making wet the click of her blinking eyelids, one hand braced comfortingly against Foggy's back, the other stretching out almost reflexively towards Matt before she reaches up instead to press her fingers over her mouth, speaking through them like the bars of a cage. “What the  _fuck,_ Matt. None of us would  _ever._ Want you to... want you _dead._ Okay? None of us would.  _Ever._ What the  _fuck.”_

She's telling the truth. 

But... but it doesn't change anything. It doesn't change what Matt  _thought._ What he'd  _allowed_ himself to  _feel._ Because he  _had_ felt pathetic... abandoned. He  _had_ thought,  _No one cares, so what's the point?_

“You know, Red, you are the most selfish fucking bastard I have ever met, and in my day I have met more than my fair share of selfish bastards.” 

It's ridiculous that it is this, this  _petty insult,_ which makes Matt bristle defensively. “I have devoted my  _life_ to this city. To  _helping people.”_

“Huh. So you know you are,” Frank deduces, because he's always been able to see right through whatever barriers Matt erects between them, because he's a soldier who knows how and when to make the kill shot. “Saint Matthew, runnin' 'round and workin' miracles. Fighting the good fight, yeah? 'Cause only  _you_ can do it. Only  _you_ can save  _everyone,_ and take all their pain, and all  _your_ pain, and all the whole world's suffering and just bottle it up inside 'cause you can't  _bear_ the thought of sharing any of that holy duty, hell no. People don't just hoard material shit, Red. And some of them don't just hold onto the warm and fuzzy stuff in their lives, either. Hate to break it to you, but you're one of those idiots stupid enough to have a death grip on all the wrong things.” 

“Yeah, I  _try,_ okay?” Matt grates, his voice, for all its intensity, hollow, like he can't physically push enough air from his lungs to put force behind his words. His hands are curled into trembling fists against the arms of his chair. He can smell his own guilt, coming off himself in waves. “I'm not  _perfect,_ but I have a sense of justice and I try to  _uphold_ that.  _Trying_ to make a  _difference_ is not  _wrong._ It's the  _most important thing I have left._ The  _only_ thing.” 

“That's not what this is about, Matt,” Foggy whispers hoarsely, yet... steadily. Without hesitation. “It's about you throwing yourself into these cycles of violence, again and again, like you don't matter when you  _really do,_ Mattie, you  _matter,_ and... and this time, you're not only perpetuating that violence without caring about what happens to you, but you are  _actively turning it_ on  _yourself.”_

“I'm not—”

“You  _are._ And the thing is? That cycle of yours? That's  _not_ the 'only thing you have left,' you drama queen. You have  _me._ You have Karen and Frank. You have Claire and Brett and your preacher guy and so many more, buddy, way more than you think you do, and caring's not some special, intellectual capability you can just turn off and on at will. Or, in this case in particular, something you can get  _others_ to turn  _off._ You don't  _get_ to alienate us for what you're convinced is our own good and then love us from afar like some creepy pining stalker. You actually  _can't._ Love is not a one-way street, Mattie.” 

Matt swallows, mouth dry. The adrenaline's wearing off and leaving him shaky, even more exhausted than before, and he feels helplessly adrift. “I didn't... I still didn't tell you about Elektra.” 

“Were you ever?” Foggy asks, and it's not an accusation, not a judgmental question layered with some deeper, hostile meaning. It's just Foggy, needing, _trying,_ to understand, voice achingly patient and neutral, but his scent reeking of shame, of second-guessing. 

It takes Matt a while to muster the will to answer him. A long time. But Foggy waits for him. They all do. 

“I. You weren't ever going to see me again.” Not until he'd overheard them talking of him. Until he'd succumbed to his own, irrepressible weakness and climbed up Karen's fire escape to crash their little party. 

“Why not?” Foggy presses, light and soft as a feather, so light that had it been a caress Matt may not have been able to feel it. 

“I... just. You didn't want to see me again. And I was... keeping busy. You could say. And over time I realized it was better that way. It was meant to be.” 

“For the record,” Karen says thickly, the anger long since drained from her voice and posture, “that is bullshit. Your 'meant to be' is bullshit.” 

“Utter poppycock,” Foggy supplements after a moment, falling back on the familiarity of humor even if the mood is rather wrong for it yet. “No such thing as destiny.” 

“Free will, all the way,” says Karen. She pauses, shifts. Then she stands, walks over to him, her socked feet slipping and slow on the floor as she nears him, and bends down to fold him in her arms. It's an awkward angle and she must be uncomfortable, but... but she doesn't let go, and Matt finds himself clinging to her, his arms spanning the small of her back, hands over her rib cage, his face pressed to the soft, flat plane of her stomach, drowning in a deluge of her scent and sound and real, physical immediacy. A port in a storm. 

“We love you, Matt,” she says. “You're loved and we're here for you. We should've been from the start but we weren't. We fucked up, and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. But we never stopped caring about you, okay? Even then. And we're here _now._ We _know_ now. We know better. And you spending time with us, letting us help you? Letting us  _love you?_ Is the exact opposite of selfishness.”

“You'll be hearing that a lot, so you might as well start getting used to it now,” Foggy says, and he's moved off the couch as well, is right beside them, crouching down and rubbing a hand up and down Matt's back. Frank is still guarding the door, but he, too, has edged closer, standing tall and firm. A support. A bastion. 

“You have to try for us,” Karen continues. “We're going to try, too, so don't give up. On us. On _yourself._ Okay? Don't piss it all away in some puerile fit of self-righteous pique.” He's startled into a laugh that morphs partway through into a sob and clutches at her warmth, holds himself to it like he can bring some of it into himself, as though she is the flame of a votive candle. A prayer, answered. 

“You can count on us, Red.” 

Matt nods against Karen's stomach as she cards her fingers through his hair, Foggy's hand meeting hers at the nape of his neck, and says, with another odd, bubbling laugh of a sob, “Okay.” 

 

~~~

 

He still leaves, the box with his Daredevil outfit slung under one arm, after Karen kisses his cheek, after Foggy pulls him into another hug and presses their foreheads together. He swings the door shut behind himself as Frank props his hip against the back of the couch with his arms crossed and stares after him without saying goodbye because they both know he'll just show up as the Punisher on Matt's rounds and shadow him the entire night. Making sure Matt's safe.

Matt leaves, but only for now, only because he still has to grieve in private, still has to find himself, his center, and he does that best through solitude, but he's given them a promise and he's going to keep it.

He will return to them.

 

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More discussion of guilt and suicide this chapter, and suicide in military culture.

That little blinking line on the blank page of her word processor is mocking her. Karen's sure of it.

She sighs, dropping her head into her hands, elbows splayed wide on either side of the keyboard, and closes her eyes, intending to rest them just for a moment.

The next thing she knows Mitchell Ellison is leaning over shoulder and snorting as he stares at her screen, the page now filled with random letters due to her forehead having clunked down onto the keyboard, most of which were _f._ She whips her head up, startled, almost hitting into Ellison as she straightens. Her cheeks are burning in mortification as she deletes the block of gibberish text. 

“Long night?” he asks, stepping back around to the other side of her desk and smoothing a hand over his beard to hide his smile. 

“You could say that,” she says, and at Ellison's nod she adds, “I mean, I've been... things have been. Complicated. Lately.” 

He quirks an eyebrow at her. “You know, I don't really want to hear about your issues. I'll just trust you have a good excuse for not buckling down on that fluff piece, so I'm going to give you a bit of advice: go home, and sort it out.” 

Karen blinks, groggy and reluctant. “Are you sure? I can —”

“Nope. This right here... this is a classic case of 'do as I say, not as I do.' You're just starting out in this godforsaken profession so I think you have a chance to make healthy habits. Good choices. Focus on those so-called complications and iron them out. Or at least clear your head instead of turning yourself into a computer zombie and getting nothing done anyways.” 

“I don't know if I can,” she says, too honestly. 

Ellison gives her a look, his brows drawing fretfully down and lips pursing, before he seems to surrender and pulls up the chair. “Okay,” he says, nodding again, taking a moment to seemingly organize his thoughts before meeting her eyes. “Let's get to the bottom of this. You're troubled?” 

“Yes?” Karen answers tentatively, a tad perplexed. 

Ellison clasps his hands beneath his chin and peers at her over the rim of his glasses like he's doing his best therapist impression. “By what?”

“What?”

“What's  _troubling_ you, Page. You're smarter than this, keep up.” 

Karen leans back, crossing her legs and chewing her lip as she wonders how to frame the worst of her problems without giving too much away. “It's... it's mostly this one friend of mine. A really good friend. Who's going through some... issues. And we... that's me and another friend, Foggy, we didn't even know he was until someone else entirely brought it up to us.” 

“This friend of yours. He's that Matt character you've mentioned, right? The lawyer?” 

Karen laughs lightly, though she's not entirely sure where the amusement comes from. Maybe it's the fact that she was couching it in such vague terms that she wasn't even acknowledging Matt's name, his  _civilian identity,_ and that in and of itself could seem suspicious, right? Or at least fucking sad. 

And sad things, of course, are funny. In their unlikelihood. In the fact that those sorts of things, according to all laws of common decency, shouldn't happen... but do anyways. 

“Yeah,” she says. “It's just... these issues? Have been... he could die. He—” Karen's breath hitches unexpectedly and she swallows, swipes a hand down her face even though her eyes remain thankfully dry. Small miracles. “I guess I took it for granted that he'd always be there, you know? That even if... that I was  _allowed_ to brush him off because I was just tired of dealing with all this shit, with, with  _my own shit,_ but he'd still be out there, you know? Just because... just because I was alone, and unhappy, that didn't mean  _he_ was. And it's not like I knew how he was doing, so for all I knew, he was doing  _great._ And that's as far as I thought about it, if I did at all. But then I find out something like that. Find out that someone I love could hate himself enough to want to... end it. And that's... I'm not even sure how to wrap my head around it. It's inconceivable. It's so terrible I never even considered it, it's the last thing I'd ever want for him, to be going through, and he was going through it  _by himself._ That... that was  _my fault.”_

Ellison passes a hand over the bald curve of his pate, frowning thoughtfully. “Was it really, though? Like you said, you had your own problems. He had his. It's not like you pushed him off the edge of that cliff.” 

“That's the question,” she says, suddenly swelling with an uncomfortable energy which fits poorly in her skin and makes her too ready to argue, to scream. She uncrosses her legs, sitting forwards, and plants her hands on the desk, holding on to her calm with the tips of her fingernails against wood. “Every time I try to justify not keeping in touch, I just get angry. At him.  _I_ didn't know how he was feeling, but he  _did_ and he  _still_ didn't break radio silence. I was  _ignorant,_ and maybe selfish, but I wasn't trying to be  _intentionally malicious._ I just wanted space, and it just so happened that my need for space coincided with  _his_ need for support, but he kept that from me and made me the asshole in this scenario. I was... I keep telling myself that I would have acted differently if I'd known. But I can't be sure of that, because I  _didn't._ I'll  _never_ know. And that? Was  _his_ fault, but I can't think about it that way because for one, it is an actual shitty asshole thing to think, even if it  _was_ my ridiculous, unwarranted gut reaction, and two,  _I'm not the one he's really hurting._ He's hurting  _himself,_ and he needs my  _help,_ not my blame. I just... he's such a fucking  _idiot.”_

Ellison's eyebrows have been gradually raising, higher and higher, digging horizontal wrinkles along his forehead. “Does he know all this?” 

Karen scoffs dramatically and folds her arms like a petulant teenager. “It's  _Matt.”_

“So... no.”

“We only just got him to agree to  _try_ not to  _kill himself_ last time we spoke. And that was with all of us there trying to convince him. Now,  _right now,_ he's alone again, and who knows what the hell he's feeling? Certainly not  _me._ Not any of us. Maybe not even him, most of the time. I don't even think he really believes he's suicidal, and that scares me. I'm scared out of my fucking mind, because what if there's nothing I can say? What if he just... gives up? Puts himself in danger and doesn't move out of it fast enough? What if I'm not there when he needs me? What if... what if I'm just. Not. There?” 

Ellison's eyes are shining wet, expression drawn. Haggard. He pulls off his glasses and wipes them with thumb and forefinger, pinching the bridge of his nose. He waves his other hand in a halting gesture without looking, arm freezing in midair at the height of his stooped shoulders. “I'm... probably  _really_ not the guy you should be asking for advice. Especially with this exact sort of thing. I've fucked up myself, in the past, and I didn't really have any way of knowing, either, only I  _should've._ We all... we should all just try our hardest, you know? Pay attention, do our best, love our neighbors, yadda yadda. And you'll do that. If I'm sure of anything, it's that you're a far better person than I am. A lot like Ben. You won't give up, and that friend of yours is lucky to have you. It's not too late for him. Just remember that. Keep trying. Keep your frustration under control. It's not too late. And seriously? You should just have some nice long heart-to-hearts with those other friends of yours if they're as involved in this is you are.” He scratches at the back of his neck, then surreptitiously wipes at his nose before dropping his arm. “Don't... don't let him down.” 

Karen clears her throat, her voice feeling fragile as she whispers, “Thanks, boss.” 

Ellison replaces his glasses and smiles tiredly, warmly, his eyes still a little unfocused. Seeing someone else's shade in her chair. “Yeah, sure. Just go home and take a goddamn nap.” 

 

~~~

 

She calls Foggy on her way home. She's been calling him over the last few days, after Matt left, and then Frank and Foggy both did, too, leaving her apartment empty. This time, as she has on all the other occasions, she hangs up without recording a message before Foggy can answer and then shoves her phone into her pocket, disappointment in herself clutching at her and overtaking some of the hope she'd managed to scrape together during her conversation with Ellison.

Back at her place it's only as she's kicking off her shoes that she notices Frank sitting in her armchair, the blinds drawn, his face lit only from beneath by the laptop perched on his knees, a ghastly bluish glow differentiated from the dim ambient light mostly by the artificiality of its color. She yelps a little in surprise and almost throws her keys at him to buy herself time to grab her pepper spray or her gun, panicked self-defense an ingrained reflex by now, and then groans in irritation as she recognizes him, her heartbeat still hammering in her chest.

“You're turning into _Matt,”_ she says. “What is it with you two and sitting in my darkened apartment like statues in wait?” 

He shrugs without looking up as she hangs her coat and rounds the corner into the kitchen to check the fridge for a snack. She closes the fridge without finding anything she wants and goes into the living room to lie down lengthwise on the couch, her feet propped on the armrest and one arm above her head. She watches Frank for a while, the way his eyes flick back and forth as he reads something, thin shadows cast up from his eyelashes towards his brows, a gentle golden glow seeping in through the window blinds to illuminate the dust motes in the air. 

“Really,” she says. “What's going on?” 

He does glance up at that, eyebrows raised, the corner of his mouth curling upwards. “What, you don't want me hangin' 'round 'less Red's here? Thought you liked me.” 

Karen snorts and drags a hand over her face. “No, I mean... is something wrong?” 

“Nah, everything's hunky dory.” Frank pauses, a nearly imperceptible hint of uncertainty flitting across his features. He closes his laptop lid with a soft snap and sets it on the coffee table, his movements smooth and efficient. “If I'm overstaying my welcome here without Red as an excuse just say the word and I'll head on out.” 

“No, no,” Karen rushes to reassure, feeling contrite at her own awkwardness. “I guess I just didn't expect you to want to... stay. With me. Without a reason to.” 

He chuckles softly, averting his eyes and shaking his head. “Ma'am, you're the best reason in and of yourself to stick with ya.” 

“Oh,” Karen says, baffled but pleased. She's sure she's blushing, too. Damn it. “Well, thank you for that. I think... I needed it.” 

“I just —” Frank shifts, closer to the edge of his seat, and meets her eyes again. “I want us all to stay with each other. Even without Red holding us all together 'cause we gotta support him in a time of crisis. I want us to be. To have a little something normal, y'know? I want this... I want  _us,_ bein' together, to be normal.” 

Karen realizes she's nibbling on her thumbnail and presses it into her lower lip to stop herself. His words seem weightier than he'd meant them to be. Prophetic, somehow. Like he's just illustrated a crossroads she hadn't known they were approaching. “Then let's make it that way,” she says. Like anything is that easy. But whatever. Fuck it, it's the resolution that counts in the first place. 

Frank grins, eyes sliding away again, towards the window, towards the door. He reminds her of a wolf at rest, panting in the shade, blinking lazily. “How long you gonna be mad at him?” he asks after a moment of deliberation, a touch somberly, but inquisitively, as well. Idle. 

“I just talked with someone about that, actually,” she says. “I'm going to try to put it behind me. It makes no sense to be mad, anyways.” 

“I'd say it does,” he refutes mildly, and she shoots him an incredulous glance. “You're mad 'cause he didn't trust you, right?” 

“Maybe,” she says, because that's the root of the matter, right? The fact that he didn't trust her enough to confide in her. “But that's... I can't hold a grudge against someone because they wanted privacy. Or because they felt like they had to, to take responsibility for everything on their own. Wanting someone to trust me more than they maybe did makes the issue about myself, when it really isn't. I don't need everything to revolve around my ego. And I think... I'm actually angriest about the fact that he felt that way at all. Not at  _him,_ but that... that those kinds of thoughts plagued him at all. I'm angry at the thoughts, at the situation he's in, at the... at the fucking universe which figured it'd be a-okay to saddle him with this. I just want to shake him out of it and that's impossible, so I'm... so I'm angry that it's happening at all.” 

Frank ducks his head in a nod, puts one elbow on his knee and rubs his temple. “My old buddies,” he begins, slowly, in a measured, intentionally casual tone. “We went through hell together. War. It's... most of it is boring, actually. That's what folks don't get. It's mind-numbing hours of driving, of scouting, patrolling, packing up, waiting, of sweating in the heat and smacking flies away and screwing with one another, bad jokes and MREs, but at any second everything could explode into action, into life and fucking death. It's eternities studded with seconds, and those seconds are exciting, exhilarating, but they aren't any more important than the eternities, and the thing is, you're thrown into a group at random, and this group becomes everything to you. The most important thing in the world. Some of us hated each other's guts but we'd still die for one another, and you knew that without question. We were brothers, and we depended on each other, and if you didn't trust your fellow soldiers you'd die. Simple as that. Maybe it's a tribal thing. Some ancient thing. These people, they become life. And everythin' else outside of them is death. That's why so many vets get back, they settle in to some fucking schedule, some civvie routine, but that group connection, that ancient, unconditional closeness, that all-encompassing acceptance and purpose, it's gone... and that's death to some people, it's a death sentence. Some of them, even during their tour, they'll... something just gets to them, right? Or they don't want to put something like their own feelings of worthlessness onto the fucking team, and that's death, too, but in that case it's not 'cause they lost their tribe, it's 'cause they think they're saving others the burden. They feel alone even when they aren't, and they go and fall on their own swords even when they really don't need to.” 

“I've heard,” Karen interrupts, hesitantly, as Frank pauses to draw in a deep, steadying breath through his nose, “that suicide's an ongoing phenomenon in the military. The rates are higher. Compared to the, uh, general... public.” 

“You heard right. It's a, what is it, a 'high-stress environment.' It's a higher calling and you wanna do everything in your power to live up to that. If you don't make the cut, if you can't fit in, you don't have any place to belong so you figure, hell, you might as well kick it. And Red? He's putting himself in that sort of mindset, into his own special little war, and he's already alone. He doesn't have a tribe of combatants to watch his back. His whole purpose with you and Nelson, his whole objective, is protection, so like hell is he gonna put whatever weight he carries onto you. Even if it fucking kills him. Thing is, without doing that? It  _will_ kill him.” 

“That's... I think that's part of the problem.” 

Frank stifles a scoff, says, “No shit.” 

“No, I mean... I  _want_ him to consider me part of his 'tribe.' I  _want_ him to be able to depend on me. I'm not some breakable, hysterical girl he needs to spare any sort of distress, and neither is Foggy. We are  _here for him,_ there  _is_ a  _place for him,_ and I just want him to  _accept that_ already.” 

Frank shrugs again, rather philosophically. “Red's a stubborn son of a bitch, so it'll take a while.”

“I know,” she says. “There aren't any easy solutions or quick fixes. This is a long-term sort of thing, and I don't plan on bailing, but I... can you blame me for being a little impatient? When every moment we aren't at that point of acceptance yet, Matt is  _suffering?”_

“We're already on that road, though. We take it one step at a time, and we'll get there.” 

“Yeah,” Karen murmurs. “Yeah, eventually.” 

Frank cocks his head, considering something. He licks his lips before he speaks. “I'm not gonna lose him, too. Not you. Not Nelson. You know that. I'll do every fucking thing in my power not to. I don't intend to let us fall apart, not any of us alone, and not all of us together.” 

There's a choking feeling climbing up Karen's throat, and she shuts her eyes so she doesn't have to face the genuineness, the quietly raging desperation, burning in his gaze. 

_He loves us,_ she thinks, quite clearly, a gentle epiphany appearing fully formed in her mind, the subconscious made conscious. Moisture squeezes out from beneath her eyelids, creeping into her lashes. She breathes in shakily and hears Frank saying “Hey, now, hey,” and coming over to kneel beside her. She gropes for him blindly and feels his large, warm hands close over hers. “I meant it.” 

“I know,” she says, and sits up, leans towards him, into his chest. He twitches a little in surprise before circling his arms around her. “You meant it, so don't you ever walk away from me again. Not again. Not from any of us. Got it?” 

He waits to answer for so long that she starts to pull away, believes that maybe she's asked too much of him, that this is a barrier between them which they won't be able to breach, but he tightens his hold on her, one hand reaching up to stroke her hair. “Yes, ma'am.” 

She breathes out, even shakier, ending the exhalation with a little laugh. “God, I'm tired. I'm going to sleep.”

“Smack dab in the middle of the day?”

“Just for a bit.” She lets herself melt into the rhythm at which he passes his hand over her hair, bunches a handful of his t-shirt into her fist. “You wanna stay?” 

Again, he pauses for a long time before saying, hoarsely, “Sure. I'd like that.” 

When she stands he lets his arms fall but she keeps a hold of his shirt to lead him into her bedroom, the sheets new, but somehow, she imagines, still smelling of Matt. They curl on top of the covers, fully clothed, facing each other. Frank's broad body is like a wall between her and all the ills of the world, blocking everything out, his hand once more curving against the back of her head. As she drifts off she thinks she can just barely hear him humming a lullaby, a near-tuneless, near-inaudible rumble resonating in his chest, echoing in hers. 

 

~~~

 

Frank waits until he's sure Karen's out of it, studying her face, the pale brown hairs of her eyebrows plucked into gracefully slender shapes, relaxed in slumber, the fan of her dark lashes against the topmost planes of her cheekbones, her full lips parted loosely, smearing a touch of lipstick onto her pillowcase, a thin, whistling snore scraping at the edges of her slow, deep breaths. He tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, feeling the velvety skin sliding over the shell-like curve of cartilage, smiles at how she wrinkles her nose and pushes her face further into the pillow to avoid the tickle of the touch, mumbling an incoherent protest.

Then he slides from the bed, careful not to jostle her, and pads into the living room. Finds her cell and flips through the most recent calls she's made until he finds Nelson's number and dials.

Nelson finally answers in the middle of the “leave a message after the beep” spiel. _“Karen,”_ he says. _“You actually called? I mean, I would've called you, but I thought maybe since you kept not calling me that you wanted more time, or, something? Uh.”_

“Why're you two doin' this?” he asks. Blunt and to the point. 

There's a moment of surprise before Nelson says, trying for smooth,  _“Oh, hiya, Frank.”_

“Don't duck the question. You and her are the ones always agreein' throughout all this shit, so why are you runnin' off back to your separate corners 'til we're all meeting with Red next goddamn weekend?” 

_“Why... didn't you ask Karen? I'm assuming she's around seeing as you borrowed her phone.”_

“She's sleeping. And she's a much better liar than you are.” 

Nelson sighs, his breath crackling over the line.  _“Okay. So. I don't know? I mean... I guess I feel. Really guilty. And wanted to wallow in it for a bit in, like, solitude.”_

“We all know from watchin' Red why that's a shitty idea.” Frank sits down in the armchair Red favors, boots up his computer while he speaks. 

_“Low blow, man,”_ Nelson accuses, but he's laughing as he does so. There's another awkward pause when he falls silent. Nelson seems to be very prone to those, but they only really affect him. Frank is unfazed as he types in his password and listens with half an ear.  _“Karen doesn't feel guilty, though, right?”_

“Why wouldn't she?” Frank asks. Keeping the conversation going. Most people tend to prattle on and figure things out for themselves with the lightest of urging, and Nelson's smart as a whip. He doesn't need to be coddled. 

_“Because I am the one guilty here,”_ Nelson says, abruptly adamant.  _“I mean... we all know that, right?”_

“I wouldn't say that,” Frank says, and leans back in the chair, letting his knees spread wide and folding one arm across his stomach, slouching. 

_“Okay, fine. So maybe we're all having some conflicting self-blamey emotions right now. I get that that doesn't help anything, yeah. And that we shouldn't just be supporting Matt in this. We should also be looking out for ourselves a little, too, right? 'Cause that's Matt's major problem and look where it's gotten him.”_

“So you're sayin' that stayin' to yourself unless Red needs us all together is a fucking dumb-ass decision to make.” 

There's an even longer pause, eventually broken by a slow hiss of outrage.  _“Why, you wily bastard.”_

“I'm gonna give Karen the speech, too, so don't go feelin' particularly victimized. Keep in touch.” Frank hangs up in the middle of Nelson's indignant indrawn breath and tosses the phone onto the couch before opening the dark web to pick up where he left off, chasing whispers of heavy weapons shipments making their way to Hell's Kitchen. He's planning to intercept them before they can ever hit the streets. Come hell or high water. He's not letting Red stand alone as the first line of defense between his city and this scum. 

When he hears Karen beginning to rouse he'll turn off the laptop, go back in and lay back down next to her. Be there for her when she needs him. He'll do anything for her. For Red and Nelson, too. 

Whatever it takes. 

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

There's a softness to the air, a moisture, the most gentle of hissing as feathery constructions of ice crystals touch down, their delicate forms shattering and melting. Matt breathes in the particular atmosphere of snowfall as he wakes, curled tightly under the aluminum foil blanket trapping a cocoon of body heat around himself where he lies against the bag of his possessions, using it as a pillow. There's almost half an inch on the ground, judging by the slight fuzziness muffling the echoes off all flat surfaces, but even with so little everything already seems so monumentally changed. There's a hush, clinging over everything, the autumn chill broken with this fresh, insistent sign of approaching winter, pollution momentarily scrubbed from the air by falling flakes and the less appetizing odors of the streets camouflaged by the clean blankness of frozen water.

Matt stays where he is for a long time, very still so as not to be assaulted by the thunderous crinkling of foil, and simply listens to the velvety susurrus of the snow, reaches his perception upwards as far as he can and allows himself to be mesmerized by the seemingly endless patterns drifting down, building up the blanket composed of their brethren, melting against the human warmth of his upturned face and catching on his eyelashes.

When he does rise it's just past dawn and a stiffness has squirreled its way into his joints, a numbness he thinks may be growing permanent. The roof he's been sleeping on is still deserted, most people in the building below still caught in the heavy embrace of slumber. He does his stretches to try to rid himself of the dragging weight which still stifles him, the creakiness of his bones, the aches of old and new scars, and then he packs his blanket into his canvas bag, slings it over his shoulder, and takes his leave, working his way down to ground level. This time he'll have left traces of himself, tracks in the snow, but it can't be helped. He'll have to switch up his sleeping places more often now.

He ducks into a public restroom to relieve himself and, afterwards, cursorily brushes his teeth and splashes his face with sour water spurting from pipes coated with calcification so strong it makes the roots of his molars pulse uncomfortably before he fishes his glasses from among his clothes and unfolds his cane. He hurries through the routine, reluctant to be caught performing morning ablutions by concerned strangers.

Back outside the flat soles of his shoes slip a little on the wet sidewalk, and the cold seeps in around his toes. He'll need to get better socks and boots at some point. Or he could just wear the boots from his Daredevil suit and hope they aren't too bright a color. They're already unusual enough without possibly being some obnoxiously hellish shade of crimson, as well, but at least their treads have some serious traction.

The city begins to stir, heat emissions of morning traffic drying the roads, engines grumbling and cars honking. Matt continues to make his way towards the seedier, emptier parts of the Kitchen, but even so he can sense the influx of pedestrians onto the sidewalks around him, the way that they give him just an extra bit of width in the berth they cut around him. Probably due to his disability in conjunction with the bag, hoodie, bedhead, and newly sprouted stubble. But then, it's not as if he's panhandling, either. He's just going about his business, hoping to be left in peace, same as they are. It's not his aim to be anything other than ignored, here. He's getting what he wants.

It's a constant litany he has to keep repeating to himself, hoping it will stick; _be thankful, be thankful, be thankful._ A reminder to cease grasping after things he doesn't need, to stop feeling so plagued by a vague unfulfillment. 

It's really quite simple. He has to set attainable goals for himself and then achieve those goals by not being a failure and not becoming distracted by an unwarranted sense of poorly defined dissatisfaction. He already has more than he deserves. He has to appreciate what he already has.

So. Goal number one: get over himself and do not get killed. Matt can do that. For them.

He  _can._ And he'll  _be thankful_ doing it. 

It is in an out-of-the-way alley that he's stored the box with the Daredevil suit, hidden in a few layers of trash bags, trash, artfully placed rubble, and a crate. Matt loiters a ways down the street from it, scanning for any signs of surveillance. It would be the height of folly to traipse over to retrieve his armor only to get busted in a sting because someone found his hiding place and just waited around for Daredevil to show his unmasked face. He does several sweeps, ascending to the rooftops to approach from a different angle and waiting again before he drops into the alley and disassembles his shrine of junk camouflage to get to his box, trades it out with his bag, and puts everything back into place before slipping away.

His stomach is cramped and hollow beneath his ribs by the time he gets to Melvin's workshop, making him feel light, the lack of weight, the illusory sense of litheness granted him by less body mass to manipulate, almost compensating for the slight weakness and shakiness of hunger. But only almost. He needs to restock his energy at some point during the day but breakfast is just one meal; Matt can skip sometimes, save both the time and the money. He pulls his hood down over his face as he approaches Melvin, scuffing his feet just enough so as not to startle him too badly.

Matt finds a sliver of mild amusement in the fact that the hoodie he used to wear to go incognito is now just his everyday apparel, warmer and more expendable than the business suits he's cached around town for safekeeping. At the very least, already being in the hoodie is more convenient... and anyone who says Matt can't find silver linings in things is totally wrong. 

“Oh, hey,” Melvin greets upon noticing him. “Haven't seen you around. Got me worried there for awhile.” 

“Got sick. Took some time off.” 

“I hope you're feeling better,” Melvin says with bald sincerity as he lays out his latest project on his workbench, and Matt smiles to hear it, even though Melvin isn't facing him.

“Yeah, I'm doing much better, now. Thanks.” 

Melvin smooths out some fabric, his callouses catching on the weave. Hesitating. “I haven't actually seen you since I lent you Betsy's present, for your friend to use. You said you'd bring it back. Without a scratch, you said.” 

Matt swallows, his throat and his eyes dry. He turns partly away, setting the box down and responding flatly. “Yeah. I did say that.” 

Melvin shuffles in place and finally looks over, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. “You didn't bring it back, though.” He's so honest that it's actually harder to read him than it is others, sometimes. There's an odd sort of kinship which Matt feels in response to Melvin, a similarity he can't ever quite place. 

“I'm sorry, Melvin.” 

Melvin shakes his head. “Your friend. She's not all right, is she.” It's not a question. 

He answers anyway, after a moment to be sure his voice won't break. “No. She isn't.” 

“Then... it's me, who's sorry. Don't worry about the armor. It doesn't matter.” Melvin scuffs his toe against the concrete floor and shrugs, the straps of his work apron creaking against the hunch of his shoulders. “Just glad you're okay, at least.” 

Matt lets himself lean back against one of the tables, letting it take his weight. He wishes he'd stayed curled on the rooftop a little longer. He wishes he still had a bed to stay in. 

He wishes he didn't have to think. About... it. Her. About anything. 

“Thanks,” he says again. Because he is, in fact, thankful. Or he should be. 

He can't actually tell, anymore. His emotions are floating just outside of himself, detached physiological reactions flaring up in response to stimuli like the echoes of actual feelings. A malfunctioning android, its networks spitting sparks. 

A mantra of  _be thankful_ is still a step up from  _why even fucking care,_ though, even if he can't sense the difference it makes in himself yet. It  _will_ have an impact eventually. Probably. 

“Hey, so what've you got for me?” 

“Same old,” Matt says, toeing to box into the optimum position in front of him before he kicks it across the floor hard enough for it to slide over, cardboard rasping against gritty cement, and bump into the leg of the workbench. 

Melvin pops the flaps open and pulls the Daredevil suit out, shaking it to make it stiffly unfold from the ball it'd been bundled into. The helmet falls back into the box, rocking. “It smells like... Febreze. And it's got little traces of white soap dried along the seams. Other than that it's really dinged up, wear and tear. You been through the wringer again?” 

“Kind of. There's this one dent in the chest plate I'd like you to fix.” 

He hears Melvin flipping the suit over in his hands and shuffling it until he sees the imperfection in question. “This's from a bullet,” he says, some force in his tone, not quite accusatory but definitely concerned. “Small caliber pistol. Any bigger and it coulda punched right through. You let someone close enough to shoot you in the chest?” 

The only other time anyone had managed to do more than wing Matt was when Frank had put a bullet right in the middle of his masked forehead. Even then, Frank had known what he was doing; he had calculated, had placed it just in the right spot so as not to be fatal. A bit to either side and Matt would've been dead. In comparison, the bullet which had struck him in the chest was clearly meant to do more than incapacitate, and was right in his center of mass to boot. An amateur thoughtlessly going for the heart. 

“It was a dumb slip-up. It won't happen again.” 

“Well it better not,” Melvin huffs. “Do you want me to reinforce the design? I have some ideas I've sketched out. It'd cut down your mobility but you'd be a lot safer with some more durability—”

“I can't do what I do clunking around in a knockoff Iron Man suit, Melvin. I just need to remember to duck, next time.” 

“You sure?”

Matt nods firmly. 

“Well,” Melvin concedes, dubiously, “okay then. Make yourself comfortable, this won't take too long. Maybe a couple hours. I wanna get the soap crud off, too, so that'll take an extra bit.” 

“I don't mind; as always, I'll bow to your expertise.” 

Melvin snorts at that assertion and gets to work. 

Matt lasts a while longer on his feet, just leaning against the table, before he gives up and hoists himself onto it, sitting with his legs dangling. After another few minutes he inches backwards to give himself enough space to brings his legs up, criss-crossing them and letting himself float into a partial trance, more zoned-out than anything. He becomes absorbed in a news special crackling from someone's radio, speculation about the aftermath of what the media has termed the Avengers' Civil War, brief soundbites of an interview conducted with Steve Rogers and Tony Stark expounding upon both of their mistakes and the difficulties but inevitability of the Avengers moving forward as a unified task force. There's a lot of heartfelt apologies and talk of regaining the public's trust before the conversation veers once more towards home-grown vigilante activity. 

Matt stops listening when the interviewer mentions the Punisher and terrorism in the same sentence. It's not like the Avengers up in their ivory tower, grappling with their big campaigns of global justice and trying to patch up their group's internal squabbles, can really say anything new on the subject of Matt's everyday existence, or have any real understanding of Frank's issues, motives, or state of mind. It's not like Matt's ever going to meet the Avengers anyways, so it's all irrelevant. 

He absently registers the sound of four small feline paws picking their way across the workshop floor, having slipped in from the door leading to the storefront and brazenly unbothered by the occasional racket of Melvin's work, but he's still surprised by the sudden arrival of the cat itself, leaping up onto the table beside him with an unexpectedly heavy and ungraceful thump, claws hooking into the wood. He twitches a little, his focus abruptly pulling back in to track the creature's cautious approach. He tentatively holds out his right hand towards her, and she... he can guess by the smell it's a spayed female... stretches out her neck to sniff delicately at the tips of his fingers, her long, feathery tail swishing through the air. 

“When'd you get a cat?” 

Melvin glances over, cursorily, not even enough to make his weight shift. “Oh, I've had her for a while now. Betsy thought it would be a good idea for me to get a pet, like a service animal. She helps keep me calm. She's really friendly. You can cuddle her if you want. Name's Nina.” 

The cat, apparently satisfied with whatever she smells on him, deigns to rub the side of her face against his hand, her whiskers pulling in to lay flat alongside her cheek as she smears him with her scent, the point of a sharp, tiny tooth just barely scraping his skin. Ridiculously enough, Matt finds himself oddly touched by the animal's gesture, even with traces of territorial musk and salmon-flavored cat food now clinging to him, and turns his hand upwards so he can scratch gently at the underside of her chin as she comes in for another pass. 

He feels the laryngeal muscles in her throat begin to twitch, producing a breathy, phlegmy sort of sputter, her ear flicking and her eyes closing as her vocal chords finally vibrate fully into life like an engine turning over, a rumbling purr spreading to resonate within her narrow chest, waxing and waning in time with her breathing. She pads forwards and butts up against him, her hard little skull ramming into his arm so firmly that he lifts it out of her reach, a little worried she'll hurt herself, but she just takes the opportunity to climb halfway into his lap, her claws pricking through the thick denim of his jeans as she kneads his thigh and presses her entire body against his chest, a very obtrusive, very contented interloper into his personal space. He lowers his arm around her, his bicep framing her ribs, and scritches beneath her chin again, which she seems to like well enough. He smiles a little as she pushes upwards on her paws to try and get closer to him, a vague affection stirring within him at the contact, at the unconditional trust and instinctual, unselfconscious attention-seeking. 

Her fur drifts upwards, tickling his nose and probably getting all over his clothes, but he doesn't care... and this time, the not-caring is almost a positive kind of not-caring, what with her warm, soft, solid weight almost helping to distract him from the black hole behind his sternum. It's like she fills it up, even if only for the moment. 

“Hey, Nina,” he murmurs, and something inside him wants to melt when he hears the pleased little uptick of her heartbeat in response to her name. She's so  _small._

“She's a sweetie, isn't she?” Melvin asks knowingly, and Matt makes a halfhearted attempt to wipe the besotted look from his expression. 

“I've never had a pet, before,” Matt finds himself confiding. “Discounting a short-lived childhood goldfish.” 

“Come and visit her anytime you want. She really likes you, and if she makes  _me_ happy, I know she can help you out, too.” 

Matt pauses, his fingers slowing as they comb through the mane-like ruff around Nina's face. “Do I seem like I need help?” 

Melvin fumbles with one of his tools, steadfastly refusing to look over. “Everybody needs help sometimes.  _I_ do. I needed a lot of help, and you and Betsy gave it to me. It's only fair to return the favor, right?” 

Matt tilts his head and strokes Nina behind one ear, curving around the near-conical curl of thin, flexible cartilage, the twitching anchor of swiveling muscle at the base obscured by a particularly silky patch of fur. She ducks away and nudges him insistently with her head, and he goes back to rubbing her chin instead. “I suppose,” he allows. Everybody keeps saying that to him, over and over again and with increasing volume and volubility, so something of it must be true. Even if he finds himself stalling at the thought, an intrinsic part of himself adamantly whispering that, no,  _he_ has to take care of  _them,_ and to do so he must not be  _weak._

“Then it's settled. Whenever you feel sad, come cuddle Nina and you'll feel better.” 

“I can't cuddle her all the time.” It slips out without Matt meaning to let it, and he winces faintly as Melvin whips his head around, the air oddly quiet around the bare dome of his skull without any hair to rustle in conjunction with the movement. 

He's bracing himself for Melvin to say something, something along the lines of  _You mean you're sad all the time? But you were just smiling, you can't be sad all the time. You're faking. Snap out of it._ Instead Melvin heaves a doleful sigh, chews on his lower lip for a moment, and then says, “Well then, when it gets really bad, or whenever you just want to,  _that's_ when you can come see Nina. She won't mind.” 

Matt lets himself relax in relief, and pulls Nina more tightly against himself, startling a louder purr out of her at the pressure. She tugs herself out of his hold, clambers farther onto him and settles down in the nest made by his calves, her front paws still kneading a touch painfully at his thigh. “I appreciate it, Melvin.” 

“No problem. Just don't get yourself shot again or anything.” 

“Yeah,” Matt says. “Yeah, all right. I'm working on that.” 

 

~~~

 

Matt finds lunch at a soup kitchen. Shuffles docilely along in line, pushes down the guilt he feels at taking food out of the mouths of the truly needy as the serving of creamed corn, mac and cheese, and a lone, bun-less hot dog is deposited onto his plastic tray. 

He has other options. Other ways of acquiring meals. But they either deplete his dwindling reserves of emergency cash or involve bothering the people he cares about, dependent upon their charity, and he cannot stand the thought of being met with pity by those he loves. It's better this way. He'll just skip dinner to make up for it, assuage the regret of being unworthy which weighs heavily on his soul. He still has some protein bars, and if worst comes to worst he can dig through the garbage out behind the grocery stores, determine what is perfectly unspoiled and edible but discarded merely because of an arbitrary sell-by date with the use of his handy dandy super senses. 

Matt should have been doing that from the beginning, actually. He's wasted far too many resources by going through routes reserved for those with no other recourse when he's had other options all along. The macaroni and cheese lodges in his throat when he tries to swallow it, tasting of cheap carbohydrates and ashes. 

Okay. No big deal. He'll just do that from now on. Now that it's finally, belatedly occurred to him. At least he's been staying out of homeless shelters since the beginning, leaving the space for someone in more need than himself. That thought, that at least there's someone sleeping warm under a roof at night because he made this small sacrifice, goes a long way towards comforting him. 

The rest of his lunch goes down reluctantly what with his sudden spate of psychosomatic nausea but he polishes everything off anyways. Waste not want not. Later he has to run to find a trash can and retches it all back up again, bile burning his throat raw and exacerbating the leftover hitch which still constricts his breathing into a burst of dry coughing. Skipping dinner is no longer an option. As long as he isn't still queasy by then. 

He finds himself wandering the streets without a destination in mind, letting his concentration fan outwards like massive wings mantling over his city, listening to all its joys and woes, ready to protect it as needed but feeling a dimension apart from everything. A spirit stubbornly haunting the world of the living. Driven by the occasional burst of vengeance. 

He doesn't know when his feet turn towards Karen's apartment, but he finds himself slowing as he realizes, narrowing his senses in on the place so he doesn't have to pass through the sight lines of any of the windows. 

All three of them are there. Talking amiably. Doing all right. 

Foggy cracks a joke, the punchline to some long, convoluted story which Matt missed, and Karen's laugh lifts up, bright and chiming, Frank rattling around in the fridge for a can of beer, tossing one to Karen who catches it even in the throes of amusement. Foggy fumbles his and drops it on the couch. The tab of Frank's cracks open with a hiss of air, the miniscule pops of building foam. 

It's not yet Saturday, which is when he agreed to check in with them. He doesn't yet have to break their peace with his presence. He's not sure he wants to. Not sure that he  _could._ Even the idea of trying to fit into their normal, carefree mood exhausts him, leaves him feeling irritable and alienated, as though he wants to begrudge them their mental health, the fact that they are not suffering under the same stifling pall as he is, even though it is the very last thing he would wish on them. 

He just needs more time, Matt tells himself, as he points his feet away, pulls up his hood, and keeps walking. He's doing okay.

 

~~~

 

“Do you think Matt's doing okay?” Foggy asks, looking out the window where the morning snowfall has resumed. 

“He's not an imbecile,” Frank says, crumpling his empty in his hand and pitching it towards the wastebasket Karen's taken to keeping in the corner. She loves her boys silly but having so many people over all the time tends to make a mess. 

Not that she minds terribly. They always clean up after themselves. 

“He's still out there in the cold, though,” Karen protests, and Foggy points at her as he looks back at Frank, tipping his chin down and raising his eyebrows meaningfully. 

Frank rolls his eyes. “When he really needs us, he'll come. We dragged that much outta him. We gotta hold up our end and let him figure out some things for himself. If he wants to freeze his ass off for awhile, well, that's none of our business.” 

“Is he even staying at a shelter or something, though?” Foggy presses fretfully, a line of worry appearing between his eyebrows. Karen has privately dubbed that line the Matt Might Be Off Doing Dumb Things Wrinkle. “Like, I  _know him,_ and everything points to him roughing it on the actual streets. Or the roofs. Wherever.” 

“Foggy,” Karen says, leaning forwards to get Foggy's attention. “You heard what Matt said. He needs some space.” 

“Oh, like he hasn't had  _months of that_ when he was avoiding us.” 

“He wasn't avoiding us,” says Karen, suddenly hesitant, her throat tightening with remorse. 

Foggy drops his head, unable to meet her gaze as he, presumably, is hit with the same sting of failure. “Yeah, he wasn't,” he says hoarsely. 

“He kinda was,” Frank says into the silence, shrugging when both Karen and Foggy turn to glare. “The important thing is that's not what's happening now.” 

“What are we even most worried about here?” Karen asks. Even if she's finally getting a hold of the situation, her anger at its suckiness giving way to resignation, it's still been bugging her that she can't fully lay out the problem into neat little sections, keep it tidy in her head so she knows what to tackle first, how to go about making things better. It's too... unwieldy, unexpected, too intertwined with itself for it to be easily untangled, and this isn't a Gordian knot that can just be sliced in half with a sword. It's going to take...  _finesse._ And it's kind of killing her. 

Not to mention that out of Frank, Foggy, and herself,  _she's_ probably the one with the lightest, most diplomatic, non-judgmental touch when it comes to the mysteries of emotional healing. Which. Well. They could be  _more_ doomed, perhaps. But it could still be _less bad,_ damn it. 

“Uh, what're we worried about? How about, for starters,  _everything?”_

Frank waves a hand dismissively in Foggy's direction, a smile lurking around his mouth. “Oh, quit your fussin', mother hen. We don't need your hyperbole here.” 

Karen is struck by how familiar and affectionate Frank sounded, saying that to Foggy. She wonders if that's something Frank used to say to the members of his unit. To his wife. 

“I think being worried about everything simply covers all our bases. Plays it safe.” 

“Useless, though,” Frank snorts. 

“Is it the fact that he's homeless?” Karen persists. “Or that he's at least partially suicidal? Grieving? Depressed? Undernourished?” 

“Let's latch onto that last thing,” Foggy says, rearing upright like he's been poked, fresh alarm written all over his face. “That's happened before, too. Never as bad as the depression but we should watch out for him, make sure he's eating enough.” 

Karen nods. “Okay.” She rubs her hands together and presses them against her chin. “Okay, so. When we see him next weekend, we'll grill him about his diet.” 

“Subtly,” Foggy contributes. “If we overwhelm him with too much 'so how've you  _really_ been doing' stuff he'll clam up and start the deflective 'no I'm fine, but are _you_ fine' mind games and run rings around us.” 

“Right. So,” Karen says, looking very pointedly at Frank,  _“subtly.”_

Frank crosses his arms and levels them with an unimpressed glower. “I can do subtle.” 

“Are you  _sure?”_ Foggy asks suspiciously. “Because the last time we wanted Matt to be subtle about something it was when you were on the stand and instead of sticking to the background questions he ended up running off on an impassioned tangent about vigilantism while  _you_ ended up exploding and blowing the whole case.” 

“That one wasn't Red's fault,” Frank says, shaking his head and looking steadfastly out the window. He seems suddenly heavier, reluctant. “Fisk contacted me. Said he had information about my... about the carousel shooting. Decided to follow up on it.” 

Karen trades a slack-jawed glance with Foggy, disbelief and a sharp twinge of empathetic pain making her want to curl her hands into fists. 

“You went to prison. To follow clues?” Foggy stands up, turns away, walks in a little circle and then collapses back onto the couch, slumping. “That's... that could have been your whole life you were throwing away. I mean, I get it, I think, you'd have given anything to  _know,_ but... how'd you even get back out? You had  _no_ plan.” 

“Same way I got in,” Frank says, and Karen absolutely does not say something like  _Oh, by throwing a psychotic tantrum?_

Partly because that would be really, really shitty of her. Mostly because she realizes what he must mean.  _“Fisk_ got you  _out?”_

Frank laughs. Too harshly, too loudly, without mirth. “Yeah, haven't you heard? Me and Red, all the cops, an' all the other so-called good guys who're helpin' to root out all the fucking scum are just cleanin' house for when Fisk gets outta the slammer and wants to reclaim his castle. Put his fat ass back on an uncontested throne.” He lunges forward, untangles another can of beer from the plastic rings of the six-pack, pops it open, and takes a long swig, Adam's apple bobbing, his head swinging back to bare his neck and then dropping down to hang over his knees with the maneuver. His free hand passes roughly over the back of his skull as though checking the length of his buzzed hair, his broad shoulder blades standing out sharply, straining against his shirt. “Fuck,” he growls. 

Foggy is white and looks rather ill. “You mean... the entire prison is pretty much in Fisk's pocket?” 

“Pretty fuckin' much.” 

“Oh,” Foggy says faintly, but with no little bitterness. “Well. Wonderful. We sent him there to face justice and he's just... biding his time.” 

“I'm done,” Frank grits out, a low gravestone-scrape sound. “I don't wanna talk 'bout this. It's done.” 

He's referring to more than simply the conversation being at an end. 

Karen walks over and places a hand over the broad, tilted plane of his shoulder, barely touching him before he lifts himself upright. For a few long seconds his face is blank as he looks into hers, as empty as when he was in the hospital, but then something flickers in the depths of his eyes, the corner of his mouth twitching wearily into a familiar smile. “Gotta go, anyways,” he mumbles. His voice, lowered, is a rasp-edged rumble. She feels the vibration of it where her hand has come to alight once more against his back. “See if Red's decided to run around out there tonight.” 

When he gets to his feet he's taller than her again, too close to keep up the eye contact, and she surprises him by flinging her arms around him and trapping him in a brief, tight hug, squeezing a gasping chuckle from him which blows warm and soft over the top of her head, through her hair. 

“Be safe, yeah?” she says. 

“Sure,” he says. “I'll keep Red outta trouble.” 

“You, too,” says Karen. “I meant you, too.” 

He nods, disentangling himself from her and stepping away. Foggy stands up, blocking his path, and holds his arms out wide, waggling his eyebrows. 

Frank hesitates, glancing back at Karen almost quizzically before closing the distance and permitting Foggy to hug him as well. 

She thinks that he'll try and do one of those bro-hugs, a hand on a forearm to pull in for a perfunctory partial embrace with some back-slapping to keep things properly platonic, but he presses himself to Foggy exactly as he did her, one hand coming up to cradle the back of Foggy's skull, stroking his hair so lightly she wonders if Foggy even feels it. 

Foggy clears his throat as they separate, finally making it awkward, and purses his lips before blurting out, “You know, Frank, we should hang out more, sometime. Uh. Whenever.” 

And then he blushes, covering his face with a hand. 

Karen feels a surge of diabolical glee and struggles to keep her own face from splitting into a blinding grin. “What, no invite for me?” she teases, sidling up to bump hips with Frank, whose easygoing smile has lost the hint of its earlier brittleness. 

Foggy shuffles sideways to give Frank enough room to pass, his hand still over his eyes. “Or not, you know, it's cool,” he continues, and then does a sort of full-body flinch of intense chagrin. 

“I think it's a great idea,” says Karen, elbowing Frank insistently. He elbows her back, the asshole. “You guys need to get to know each other better now that Foggy's no longer crapping his pants whenever you make your  _grr_ face. It can be your very own man-date. Totally manly.” 

“Karen. How could you,” Foggy whispers dramatically, peeking between his fingers to fix her with an utterly mortified expression. “I thought we were friends. I  _trusted_ you.” 

“You'll thank me later,” Karen stage-whispers back. 

Frank shakes his head at them and tousles Foggy's hair fondly. Foggy drops his hand and flails indignantly, his death-glare undermined by the wild hanks of hair being scrubbed over to hide it. “Sure, let's have a man-date,” Frank says. 

Foggy ducks away to freedom, his cheeks still an endearing apple-red. Karen laughs at how desperately he tries to compose both his expression and his hair as he scuffs his heel against the floor. “Great! Okay. So. Anytime's good. Do you need my address?” 

“Nah,” Frank dismisses casually. “I'll get there.” 

 

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

Frank does indeed find where Foggy lives and shows up unannounced. The very next day, in fact.

Foggy's getting used to unexpected drop-ins at this point, a survival mechanism which ensures he won't die tragically young and beautiful of a heart attack, so this time he doesn't jump a foot in the air and shriek in surprise when Frank just _appears_ at his shoulder as Foggy's unlocking the door to his apartment.

“Do you stalk us or something? How long have you _known_ where we all live? Wait. Did you just— you just followed me home, didn't you?”

Frank doesn't even have the decency to look abashed as Foggy lets him inside. There's a white plastic bag hanging in one of Frank's hands, swinging against his leg. Whatever's in it is heavy and clanks like metal, but isn't especially bulky. Doesn't sound like food, which is unfortunate. “What've you got there?”

“Gift,” Frank says, and fishes something out, simultaneously and automatically stepping out of the way as Foggy swings the door shut behind them. The gift's... a pretty impressive locking device, the kind that sad, lonely, paranoid people with a few bucks to burn install _en masse_ above and below the usual doorknob and safety chain combo. “Got several. For your door. You got a hammer?”

Foggy scoffs. “I got you one better. Wait here. Uh, make yourself at home.”

He leaves Frank shuffling in his entryway and goes to dig out the toolbox from the back of his hall closet. When he comes back Frank is in the exact same spot, turning the lock over in his hands and frowning down at it with a look of intense concentration.

Foggy wonders if that's what Frank looks like when he's nervous. _Foggy_ sure is. So.

Foggy plucks his key ring back up from the dish on the Ikea table he keeps in the entryway, selects the toolbox one, then sets said battered but handsome firetruck-red toolbox on the floor and unlocks it. “Got an electric screwdriver in here, cordless. Batteries should still be good— ah, yup. Here we go.” He switches it on and depresses the trigger a couple times in quick succession to hear it whiz cheerily into life, buzz-buzz-buzz.

He used to think that the noise his dad's screwdriver made was what bumblebees sounded like. His parents thought it was too cute to tell him the truth until he figured it out for himself via his early implementation of the scientific method. It's probably fair and completely reasonable to say that the shock and betrayal of the discovery haunts him to this day.

Still crouching, he reaches over and snatches the bag from Frank, digging around inside with much rustling of plastic for the nails Frank's probably bought so he can pack them away in his toolbox and exchange them for the screws. And lo, he... does not, in fact, find nails. “You do know these are screws, right?” he asks.

Frank sidles back to lean against the door, shrugging and crossing his arms, his inconspicuously drab cargo jacket pulling tight across his shoulders in knife-slash wrinkles. For some reason he seems reluctant to meet Foggy's eyes, what with Foggy hunkered down so far below him.

Foggy carefully keeps his thoughts out of the gutter and therefore totally does _not_ notice that his head is level with Frank's crotch, thank you very much.

“What's the difference?” Frank asks, uninterested, his upper back bumping against the door as he idly toes at Foggy's toolbox. He's still wearing those steel-toed boots of his, and the nudge produces a little metal-on-metal tap.

“Okay, you're just pulling my leg. You were asking for a hammer.”

“So?”

“You can't hammer screws, man. Everyone knows that.”

Frank shrugs again, rolling his eyes and then his head up to look at the ceiling. He has a very nice neck. Kinda long, strong but not thick, not as stubbly as Matt's but respectably rough, and an Adam's apple Foggy wants to feel beneath his lips, which, _whoa,_ Foggy, pull the brakes and get back to pure thoughts, heavenly thoughts, clouds and Jesus thoughts.

“No way,” Foggy gasps, in lieu of continuing to silently admire the Punisher's smokin' hot bod. “You were an actual _homeowner_ with a _house._ To reiterate something I'm _sure_ I've already said, you're the smartest, most mechanically-minded, scarily competent person I know. And... you don't know the difference between screws and nails?”

“Add it to the list. Maria was the one who'd do the odd jobs around the house, fix all the leaky sinks and light bulbs, whatever needed doin'.”

Foggy pauses, but Frank doesn't seem upset at mentioning his family. Just fond, of course, pleased to have brought up a pleasant memory, and... melancholy, a bit. Pained by a healing wound. But that's... that'd be normal.

“By 'list,' you mean the list of Frank Castle's elusive weaknesses?” he says, trying not to come across as too glib, wondering if he was supposed to take the opening and turn the conversation towards the angst-fest of Frank's deceased family, but it seems to be what Frank expected him to say.

“Yeah,” Frank says. “Along with chopsticks. If it ain't a gun I don't know shit. Couldn't find my own ass with both hands and a map.”

“Well, consider me always ready to locate that fine ass of yours if you ever need any help, because I gotta say it's quite the prepossessing feature. At least to me. And also probably to everybody who isn't you, come to think of it. You and Matt are both very blessed in that regard. Even if Matt's bubble butt might have you beat.”

Frank laughs at that, right as Foggy's brain registers what his mouth has said— so much for keeping his admiration freaking _silent—_ and he feels his facial temperature start to rise to something somewhere between sidewalk-so-hot-you-could-fry-an-egg-on-it and surface-of-the-sun. Why? Was? He? Always? _Blushing?_ Around Frank? Goddamn it.

He just hadn't had time to acclimate to Frank's hotness yet, the way he had with Matt and Karen. That had to be it.

That, and Frank was... Frank. Tall. Mysterious? Before you get to know him? Kinda imposing. Hard to impress, maybe, and if Foggy has ever been sure of anything it was that he is not very impressive. And he doesn't know Frank well enough, yet, to gauge if he can be distracted by a little razzle-dazzle wit and confidence which is occasionally hella faked, or if Frank likes Foggy enough not to care about his myriad shortcomings the way he's pretty sure Matt and Karen do, the way he overlooks theirs. He's flying blind, here. So to speak.

“Here, give me that thing and I'll get to work,” Frank says, holding out a hand like he actually thinks Foggy's about to relinquish his darling screwdriver to a total layman.

“Excuse _moi,_ but which one of us is an accomplished handyman who practically grew up in their family's hardware store and learned practical engineering at the tender age of very-young for fun before tragically forgetting just about all of it in his old age of not-that-old? I'll give you one guess, and one clue: it ain't you. So kindly keep your paws away from Jocelyn and to yourself, thank you very much.”

“I said it's a _gift,_ the whole point is that you don't have to work on i— did you name your power tool Jocelyn?”

“She's a lady,” Foggy sniffs.

“Knew a guy, Rich, he used to name his guns like that. Things like Theresa, Marjorie.” Frank waits a beat for either dramatic or humorous effect, Foggy's not sure which. “He was batshit crazy, that guy.”

“I resent your insinuation of mental instability, sir. As does milady Jocelyn.” Foggy snaps on the correct drill attachment, crooning lovingly to his screwdriver as he does so. “There, there, my precious, don't listen to the bad carpentry-challenged man and his mean, mean words. He knows not what he says, _no_ he _doesn't.”_ Foggy duck-walks towards the door and slaps Frank's thigh with the back of his hand as though swatting at a pesky fly. “Move, go lean against the wall and be really cool over there instead or something. You can pass me stuff and watch the master at work.”

“Yes sir,” Frank acquiesces dryly, shuffling desultorily but obediently out of Foggy's way.

“Learn well, young Padawan,” Foggy tells him, the tip of his tongue already drifting to stick out the side of his mouth the way it does whenever he's summoning his awesome handyman skillz. “There may be a pop quiz later.”

 

~~~

 

“So,” Foggy says, washing up in the kitchen sink, “you hungry?”

“Could eat.”

“Good, because I am _starved.”_ And also Foggy is one of those hosts who's chronically concerned with fattening up their guests. Out of love, not out of some Hannibal Lecter-y, wicked-witch-with-a-gingerbread-house, craving-for-human-foie-gras sort of motive. He's always liked making food and having people eat it, but like most long-standing caretaker habits in his life he can trace this one back to his college days, when he first started catching on to Matt's... well, _Matt's,_ own, in- _need_ -of-a-caretaker habits.

Foggy tries to push away the automatic worry over Matt's unhealthily, needlessly self-punishingly skimpy dietary schedules, does a mental run-through of all his ingredients, and makes a snap decision for comfort food. “Grilled cheese sound good to you?”

Frank grunts an absent affirmative, preoccupied with a systematic investigation of all the drawers and cabinets.

“Grab the George Foreman while you're there, yeah?”

Frank, as expected, finds it in his next sweep and digs it out of the big bottom drawer where Foggy keeps it with the juicer and half the disassembled food processor, setting it with a gentle clank on the counter and getting out the plastic grease-catcher boat-thing as well without Foggy having to ask. He swings the Foreman open a couple times like a clam shell, as though checking the hinges, before, apparently satisfied, he kicks the big drawer shut with his now non-booted foot and makes for the fridge.

Foggy dries his hands and grabs the bread and butter from the breadbox as Frank locates the cheddar, sandwich meats, and half an onion, depositing them in an orderly row before swinging the fridge door shut and taking Foggy's place at the sink to wash up as well.

“Hey,” Frank says as Foggy's getting out a pair of plates, over the rush of the tap water gurgling down the drain. When Foggy glances his way he sees Frank staring down into the whirlpool of water like it's a stainless steel wishing well hiding all the secrets he's searching for. “You know he's not comin'. Don't you.” A rhetorical question. Frank sure seems fond of those.

Foggy swallows down the sudden uncomfortable lump of unease in his throat. Clears it so that his tone will remain nice and light. “Why do you say that?”

“'Cause he ain't ready, yet. This is just another responsibility for him. Not somethin' he believes.”

“He'll come,” Foggy says, with more certainty than he feels, a veneer he immediately betrays by adding with plaintive annoyance, “I mean, he _promised._ And he _wants_ to try. To get better.”

“Not for himself, though,” Frank states flatly, unflinchingly... it's Foggy who flinches, at that.

Foggy pops open the Tupperware container with the onion half, sets the onion on the chopping board, and starts dicing to give an excuse for any possible moisture in his eyes, slamming down the cleaver with a little too much force but carefully far enough away from his fingers so as not to chop anything off. He's not anywhere near _that_ desperate to change the subject. Yet.

“He's coming,” Foggy reiterates firmly. He wonders if this is how Matt feels when he exercises his faith. It's probably a tad different, but he thinks there's something that must be similar, between the belief one places in one's loved ones, and the hope granted by religion; sometimes the stronger the evidence is against them, the greater reason there is to nourish them rather than let them wither and blow away in the wind.

The water shuts off, and Foggy can feel Frank watching him before he grabs the dishtowel off the rack with a sharp, snapping flair and sets about drying his hands, meticulously wiping the cloth between each of his fingers with the same sort of clipped task-oriented grace with which he handles his weapons. “Maybe,” Frank allows, slowly walking up to stand beside him. Even in his socks and on slightly slippery floorboards his steps are sure, steady like there's something just a little heavier than gravity rooting him to the ground. “I hope so. Don't think so. But I hope.” He lays the towel down on the counter, beside the chopping board, and gently shoulders Foggy aside. Their hands, comfortably cliché, brush as Frank takes the cleaver, and Foggy leans away once he starts slicing, sniffing against the irritation of onion prickling his eyes and listening to the crisp _schnick_ and wooden _thunk_ sounds of the knife at work.

He needs some space to breathe, around Frank. Like being around him is swimming underwater; weightless yet heavy, expansively enfolding, a little harder to maneuver through than thin air, and he needs to take a moment every now and then to surface just so that he can survive, but he can't help but plunge back in again whenever he's caught his breath.

“You just gonna stand there and look pretty?” Frank asks, throwing him a wry look, his cleaver pausing as he does so before swiftly passing back over the onion, dicing it into tiny, faintly curling cubes, greenish-white and stingingly glistening where they lay spilled in a neat pile against worn, honeyed wood crisscrossed with scars. It's gratifying to notice that Frank's eyes have gone a tad red-rimmed from the onions, too. Human after all.

“No,” Foggy says, already going over to where he's left the bread to pull out four slices, “I am going to pose here and radiate beauty like the great Greek god Apollo radiates sunshine.”

“All right then,” Frank says, half his mouth curving gently into that fond, lopsided smile Foggy's noticed him wearing more and more often in Foggy's, and in Karen and Matt's, presence. Frank promptly runs out of onion to massacre, and after a moment he sets down the knife, turning to lean his hip against the counter and stare absently down at Foggy's hands as Foggy starts buttering both sides of the bread, making sure to get it layered on there thickly and evenly, and to get all the corners carefully covered. You leave a spot bald of butter on a grilled cheese and the result is a sub-par end product, burnt bread bits stuck to the grill; gotta avoid that.

“Something bothering you?” Foggy says, because he's been friends with Matt long enough to recognize the particular mien of someone who's thinking about whether or not they have something to say, but is content to hover a circumspect distance away in silence until or unless specifically prodded. Frank lacks the undercurrent of tightly-wound pensiveness that Matt tends towards, though. He has that ember of anger, yeah, but it's less like he's constantly low-key anxious and more like he's a rock. A supportive pillar, ready to crush all enemies. Like an actual, _literal_ stone. Or maybe several. A whole rock slide.

Figuratively speaking.

The quality of Foggy's simile game is definitely degrading of late, jeez Louise. It's the stress. The next thing to go is probably gonna be his luxurious mane of hair. And after he argued Hogarth into changing the company dress policy so he could keep his glorious locks untrimmed at his high-end workplace, too.

“Nah,” Frank says easily, in answer to the are-you-troubled inquiry, but then after a few more seconds he forges predictably onwards. “Somethin's been on my mind for the past while. Been meanin' to bring it up with one of you.”

“One of us?”

“You or Karen. Already discussed it with Red. He's actually the bastard who got the question stuck in my head.”

“Oookay,” Foggy says cautiously, the swipes of his butter knife slowing in apprehension.

Frank keeps his head lowered as he looks up from Foggy's hands to meet his eyes, his gaze opaque and unwavering, but oddly... quieting, rather than unsettling. Frank gets a stillness around himself, sometimes, and in this moment Foggy can feel it extending to him as well, a stasis bubble, or... a chrysalis. Safe, and contained, but on the cusp of change, a bloom of growth. Some momentously basic and natural shift.

With any luck, it'll be for the better.

“I wanna know... if you know.” Frank says it like Foggy should understand immediately, maybe through some magical telepathy he doesn't have. Maybe because the moment Frank asks, Foggy's mind instantaneously jumps to the one and only place he can imagine this going, the place he _has_ imagined this going, but he's too stubborn to admit it to Frank right off the bat. After all, what if he's _wrong?_ Foggy is the _cautious_ one out of their fearsome foursome, so help him.

So, super suavely, he says: “Uh. Know what?”

Frank snorts softly at him, shaking his head, smiling slightly, but that stillness is still about him, in his eyes.

Foggy breaks like a dry twig. “Yes, all right?” he groans, letting the bread and the butter knife slip onto the plate so he can throw both hands up in the air, shoulders hunched, palms open, fingers spread. _What can you do._ “At this point I think every one of us knows about this... this thing, this attraction or whatever, that's between us. There. Happy?”

Frank just keeps looking at him.

Foggy makes another flinging _what even_ gesture and pivots to plant his butt against the edge of the counter, folding his arms with a childishly defensive pout and glaring off at the fridge rather than at Frank, because it's not like he's actually mad at _him_ or anything. It's just. Ridiculous. All of it. This isn't freaking middle school anymore, so why the hell does it feel like it? All... fluttery stomachs and nervous sideways glances and stupid mushy hormones mixed liberally with abject confusion, all threatening to break out into hurt feelings and vicious, petty squabbles at the first misstep, the inevitable misunderstanding.

Man, middle school was a dark time.

Frank finally blinks, focus flicking away and then back, and then apparently decides to change tacks. “Are you tellin' me... that this ain't a man-date?” he says slowly, the very soul of seriousness but for an evil twinkle in his eye which he must have picked up from Karen.

Foggy huffs, caught between laughter and a heartfelt sigh of despair, and pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut so he can escape, even fleetingly, into the dark, welcoming embrace of the abyss. “Well, there is a teensy chance that this is, in fact, due to the nature of our four-way romanticky entanglements, an actual date-date. And not a man-date.”

“I... see,” Frank replies, feigning a tone of dawning betrayal despite the warmth bleeding into his voice.

Foggy blindly swings his left arm out and manages to smack Frank's rock-hard bicep, mostly because Frank lets him, and then drops his other hand from his face so he can confront this with dignity and eye contact. “Oh, like you didn't know,” he accuses.

“That's the thing, though,” Frank says, and since Foggy's looking at him, he sees the moment Frank's expression shifts from mock-serious back to actually-serious. “I did know.”

“Oh,” Foggy says, realizing he has indeed been missing the point after all. “I didn't really. Realize. That.”

Frank shrugs one shoulder, raising an eyebrow and tilting his head a little. “It's not like you and Karen were all that subtle about it.”

“Oh my god,” Foggy says, honestly appalled now. “You _out-subtled us.”_

“And you two dared to doubt me.”

Foggy pauses, turning over the implications in his head. This... this brought it one step closer to... to being a real thing, between them. That was, of course, only if... “Do you... feel the same? Towards us?”

“I don't think that matters right now,” Frank says, somewhat roughly, and finally he moves his gaze away, down to the floor. When he swallows Foggy can see the bob of his Adam's apple.

“Why? Because you _do,_ but you don't think it's a good idea?”

Frank's mouth twists up. “Bingo.”

Foggy presses his lips together, a sudden queasiness burning in his stomach, which has dropped somewhere down around his feet even as his heart tries to climb up his throat. “Yeah, okay,” he says, voice a reedy whisper. “I get it.” He draws in a deep, soothing breath and grips the edge of the countertop behind him. “It's fine.”

Frank scoffs to himself, looks at Foggy, shakes his head and looks away again, angling himself to face in the same direction as Foggy, leaning back against the counter and crossing his arms. “No. It's not, and you don't.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I do want to.” The flat _longing_ in Frank's voice prickles in the air, over the back of Foggy's neck. “You three... are all that I've wanted, that I've been _able_ to want, since... wanting nothing but... justice. Revenge.” His breath shudders in his chest, too quiet to be a gasp but just as desperate, starved of air. “But it all started with Red, you know? You and him, him and Karen. Me an' him. He's the first one we each... I dunno. Connected to. Our focal point. And right now he thinks it's impossible. He thinks a lotta things are impossible. And I can't hope for this, no matter how much I want it, 'til _he_ can let himself hope for it, too. We're... he's already fucked up with you guys, right? Well I'm a bigger fuck-up than Red'll ever be, so believe me when I say I don't wanna fuck it up on top of his fuck-ups, and maybe ruin it for all three of you for fucking good. I'm not gonna let that happen.”

It occurs to Foggy, as it has before, that Frank tends to speak in declarative sentences. He's not _going_ to let it happen, this _is_ the way things are, _this_ is how things _are going_ to _be._ He wonders how much of it is the mind of a wartime tactician, of rigid thought processes born of plans which couldn't afford to fail because the cost would be in lives. Maybe some of it is just... willpower. Like the way Matt gets, when he sets his jaw, when he takes a stand, when he pushes through sleepless nights with multiple cups of coffee and raw determination. When he takes a punch. A back-alley beating.

He wonders how much of Matt and Frank's sheer, obstinate _effort_ isn't out of necessity, but out of fear. Fear of failure. Fear of loss. Or just... fear, itself.

Foggy used to think the Punisher didn't feel fear. He used to think a lot of things which he now knows are wrong, really.

Frank is standing tense, his head still bent towards the floor. Foggy reaches up and slips a hand over the nape of Frank's neck, smooths downward, repeats it, a petting motion, digging his fingertips in just firmly enough to knead into the flesh, press in over the vertebrae. He can feel Frank startle slightly and then loosen under the touch, straightening.

“I'm not going to let that happen, either,” Foggy tells him haltingly. “I mean. We all have the capacity to fuck this the hell up. It's not all on you or Matt. And we all care about each other more than we do about some hypothetical four-way. We aren't going to be pressuring each other into hopping on the bandwagon or risk getting left behind, that's not what I'm saying. But if there's a chance, someday? For us? _All_ of us, getting together? I don't want to throw it away and risk regretting it for the rest of my life. It's... worth a little more than that, to me, y'know? _You're_ worth more.”

Frank turns his head to look at him, forcing Foggy's hand to slide down and rest against Frank's shoulder. “He loves you,” Frank says, all gentle gravel, as though handing Foggy something delicate. Breakable. “He won't admit it yet. Maybe never will. But he does.”

“I... love him back,” Foggy murmurs, just as carefully. “I mean. He knows. About all of us, and us and him, and our stupid pre-adolescent pining, right?”

“Yeah. He said it himself: he always knows, no way for him not to.”

“That's... then if he knows, why won't he just... believe? That it's true? It's the _truth.”_

Frank's muscles ripple up under Foggy's hand as he shrugs, and then sidles a step closer so he can curl his arm around Foggy's waist, just above the counter, his broad, warm hand settling lightly against Foggy's hip. “Sometimes the truth ain't worth shit,” he growls, the tired bitterness of his words at odds with his tenderness.

Foggy dutifully considers this for a long moment, then says, “Fuck that noise.”

It startles a thin chuckle out of Frank, at least. His arm tightens around Foggy for a moment, Foggy's arm slung above Frank's, resting along Frank's back so Foggy can keep his hand up on Frank's shoulder, feeling the warmth and height of him, his nearness.

“We'd be fucked without you, you know,” Frank says, once again with that same odd combination of casualness and gravitas. “Several times over. You need to know that, too.”

Foggy lets out a bark of laughter, amiable but perhaps too self-deprecating, too honest, for the circumstances. “You don't have to butter me up, Frank, I'm already going to feed you.”

Frank jostles him a bit, as though in lieu of shaking him by the scruff of the neck, and when Foggy rears indignantly back, as far as he can given that he does not actually want to dislodge Frank's arm from around him, Frank is fixing him with a stern, disbelieving look. “I mean it. I'm a basket case, Red's almost as bad, and Karen doesn't know when to quit, doesn't always bother to save her own skin. You're the only one who ever knows what the hell the sane thing to do is.”

“I'm nowhere near as awesome or self-sufficient as you guys,” Foggy snorts.

“You think any of us are self-fucking-sufficient? You ever _met_ your buddy Red?”

Foggy cocks his head, pausing. “Huh. Touché,” he concedes.

“Fighting your way out of something you were gung-ho enough to get yourself into ain't as admirable as being able to circumvent that shit in the first place, let alone reach in and help pull others out. You're our anchor. Don't underestimate yourself, and don't you fucking forget that.”

“Well,” Foggy says haltingly, a tad overwhelmed and definitely touched, “that's something important for you to remind me of every now and then. Just in case.”

Frank's subsequent snort is drowned out by the sound of Frank's stomach stridently squealing its hunger to the room at large.

Foggy grins as Frank releases him in order to rub at the back of his head in a manner which could, at a stretch, be termed bashful. “Let's get back to our sweet sweet dinner-making, shall we?”

“Sure thing,” Frank says, decisively slamming down the block of cheddar onto the chopping board and reclaiming the knife.

 

~~~

 

In the end Frank kind of takes over the cooking, throwing together a kingly repast of grilled cheeses with ham, onions, and fresh basil from the beautiful plants Foggy's been cultivating in his kitchen window because they smell awesome and their verdant foliage tints the morning sunlight pleasantly green, several cans of ready-to-go tomato soup heated up on the stovetop, and a nice, only slightly-wilted leftover salad from the crisper which Foggy's been meaning to eat, because unlike what Matt and Karen think, he does, in fact, make healthy choices from time to time.

They dig in at the dinner table, because Foggy is an adult who owns one and dinner tables with actual chairs to sit in are the bomb, after which they both agree to watch _Am_ _élie,_ as without having to narrate Foggy is free to read the subtitles of a foreign-language film at his leisure without the undue stress of impossible multitasking, and it turns out that Frank is secretly a total sap for a good romantic comedy even if he pretends otherwise. Foggy's got his number, now, and he is _never_ letting this lovely tidbit go.

Afterwards Foggy walks him to the door so that they can both struggle with unlocking the hundred thousand newly installed security measures, and at the last minute, in that awkward moment where Frank is standing on the threshold and they're trying not to stare uncertainly at each other, Frank suddenly grabs Foggy's hand, yanks it upwards, and kisses the back of it.

Foggy gapes, Frank gives him a boyish grin as he straightens up and backs away, and suddenly the door is shutting, Frank is gone, and Foggy is beaming like a lunatic.

It's a good night.

 

~~~

 

“Foggy?” Karen mumbles groggily into her receiver, half asleep. “Kinda late for a call, isn't it? Anything wrong?”

_“Nothing wrong. Just thought you'd want to know that my manly not-man date-date with Frank was a complete success for all involved, knocked it out of the park, but if you'd rather I hung u—”_

“Don't you _dare,”_ Karen snarls, jackknifing up in her bed and snapping into full awareness. “Give me _details.”_

_“Okay. Uh. He brought me some locks for my door, we talked about our feelings, had dinner, watched a movie, and then that was about it.”_

“Wow. You suck at details.”

_“Gimme a second, I'm still... have you, uh, talked with him yet? About the thing?”_

“What thing?”

 _“You know. The_ thing.”

“Ohhh,” Karen says, lowering herself back into the blessed softness of her pillow and putting her cell on speakerphone so she can set it beside her head and nestle back into her comforter. _“That_ thing. No, actually. Isn't it a bit early to broach that with everything how it is right now?”

Foggy's laugh sounds a little guilty. _“Well. About that...”_

“Oh,” Karen says, cutting off the _no_ which wants to follow after it. Foggy'd said that everything went really great, so there can't be anything to worry about. Probably. “How'd it go?”

 _“First off, I deny all culpability as he was the one who brought it up. Because we haven't been sneaky enough around him or something, and unlike Matt, who, by the way,_ also _knows but is in all likelihood_ deeply _in denial, he was all like 'let's just talk about this emotional issue and get it out of the way for now.' So we, I dunno, acknowledged it. Cleared the air.”_

“So he's... he told you? That he...” Karen's throat closes before she can choke out _loves us?_ She already knows he does, but there's a difference between knowing he does, and hearing that he's finally... said it. That _he_ knows he does.

 _“Yeah. He talked with Matt first, a while ago. That's... that's how this conversation came about, I guess.”_ Foggy's sigh transmutes into a rubbery fluttering of his lips, like a horse's whicker. _“He thinks we should wait. Until everyone's ready. In the right place. But he... he does. He likes us back.”_

“Hmm,” Karen hums thoughtfully, staring up at the shadowed corners of her bedroom ceiling. She begins to smile to herself, there alone, in the dark, and tugs her blanket further up over herself, resisting the urge to duck her chin beneath it as though to hide or stifle the happiness overtaking her. “Did he... say anything about me?” she asks, feeling coquettish, nigh on immature.

Foggy sputters exaggeratedly at her. _“Middle school all over again, I freaking_ swear. _No, we pretty much kept it vaguely about everyone, but your inclusion was therefore continually implied. And also at one point he said you don't know when to quit and I am the sole provider of sanity to you all.”_

“Yup,” Karen murmurs affectionately. “That sounds about right.”

 

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahaha around six months isn't so long a period before updating, right guys? Haha right? Right?... Guys?....... Right?
> 
> Anyways here have another boring, dialogue-heavy chapter of improbably self-aware conversations, equally improbable, extended, and emotionally articulate introspection, Matt approaching life wrong, implied dissociation, and a very small Melvin and Nina-the-cat cameo! 
> 
> And if you want, you can also find it (and moi) right over here on [Tumblr!](http://willowbilly.tumblr.com/post/158913304136/leave-me-alone-let-me-be-chapter-11)
> 
> (Yay!)

The long-awaited Saturday rolls around.

Karen lets Frank sleep over again the night before so he doesn't have to hike there from his safe house, though he takes the couch this time and tosses and turns all damn night on the precariously narrow, saggy cushions. Ends up fleeing with the dawn to do his usual morning circuit of the streets, which takes a while, but still not long enough.

Nelson likewise shows up hours early, buzzing with anticipation which Frank sees spread to Karen as easily as if from one cell in an organism to another and which he's hard pressed not to succumb to himself. He unwisely drinks a couple beers to kill the feeling of queasy hope and holds tight to his misgivings instead, camped out in Matt's corner chair with his laptop as Karen and Nelson put on some smooth jazz and stumble through increasingly tense matches of chess as evening creeps over them. The whole day is spent wrapped up in stifling wait, a waiting bogged down with the same airless quiet of a funeral speech where you'd feel too guilty to dare risk a glance at your watch to check the time but too detached to invest yourself in actual mourning.

They all stand too quickly when the knock comes.

Nelson— _Foggy,_ Frank's _gotta_ get into the habit of first names with the guy now that he's not just “one of the lawyers” to him, shoots Frank a pointed glance the moment Karen opens her door and Red's on the other side, perking up all happy and victorious and _see?_ because he thinks his old buddy is really there with them, present inside that thick, funny skull of his, standing there in his rumpled suit and his beat-up blind-person shades.

There's no way to tell him, with Red right there, what Frank knows, what he can feel way down thrumming underneath him like the vibrations from a mortar reaching up through the rubber of his boot soles; this is too soon to be anything other than a polite facade of progress, too soon to allow Red time to get his head in the game. Hell, besides being all for show, the very artificiality of this'll probably knock Red right off track before he even has the chance to start, start him faking again to ease their fears.

But it's not like Red really could've been allowed to come back to them completely in his own time, either.

Frank had thought, at first, that he'd be able to keep tabs on him while he's out, that maybe they could manage to keep in contact and help him out organically, without enforcing specific dates and times to meet like a trio of concerned parole officers with their charge, but there hasn't been hide nor hair of him on the streets since they'd dragged him off them to recover from the flu and Red hadn't tried to get in touch with either of the others before tonight, the agreed-upon date for when he absolutely _had_ to, which, again, raises the thought that he's set out to do all of this for _them_ rather than for _himself._

And just the other day he was trying to convince them that Red was fine out in the snow, doing what he wants. Which... they can't make him _not_ do what he wants, so he figures his point stands.

Frank can't tell if Karen and Foggy realize that they've picked the less bad option out of a pair of bad options, if they mistakenly think that that this situation already feels so stagnant because it's like a lull before enough energy builds up for them to really start to roll in the right direction, instead of what it really is: just stagnation, itself. If they can tell that they're still balancing on the peak of that hill, that they— that _Red_ could still end up tumbling on backwards with the barest shift of the wind.

But none of them have a better solution. Frank very well isn't any sort of damn expert on this shit.

He thinks, looking at the way Karen cradles Red's elbow, leaning into him to nudge him towards Ne— Foggy, that even if they don't think it, they _feel_ it; that basic flaw inherent to any way they approach this. The gravity tugging at their polite little balancing act. The two of them wouldn't be alive if they didn't have the right instincts to divine the sort of duplicity which so easily insinuates itself into your own mind, wrapping you up in comforting apathy, telling you not to worry, to let things go and leave them as they are.

Hell, if they were the kind to give in to that sort of thinking Red would be dead already.

So maybe they are on the right track. Frank's been wrong before, that's for damn sure. And doing nothing is the same as giving up. Quitting.

Like fucking hell.

“You all right, Frank?”

It's Red, modulating his monotone into something with just enough intonation to pass as life, his face appearing plastic as he raises his eyebrows, pulls the corner of his mouth up. A near-perfect impression of true expression trying its damnedest to avoid the uncanny valley and failing.

“Are _you?”_ Frank asks, trying to deflect attention from what was probably a protracted period of worried glaring on his part.

Red shrugs, the half-smile stretching wider, but before he can visibly muster the energy to verbally respond he's saved, as he has been so many times before, by Foggy cutting in.

“Did they just passive aggressively express concern for each other?” he whisper-shouts to Karen, leaning over in front of Red and theatrically shielding the side of his lower face with his hand.

“Baby steps,” Karen replies, in the same fashion. “The purging of toxic masculinity... it's a process, you know?”

“So you mean at some point they'll graduate to just aggression, none of the passive?” Foggy jokes, voice rising. “Won't that be _dangerous?”_

Red slaps him lightly with the back of his hand, his smile momentarily solidifying into a glimmer of real emotion, soft and tired, but there... before fading again.

Frank feels his jaw clench, and looks away.

Karen must catch it because the hand not at Matt's elbow stretches out to alight on Frank's shoulder, bridging the gap and bringing their whole group into a sort of huddle, Foggy immediately leaning in with a grin and looping his arms around Frank and Matt's necks. Matt is back to focusing on Frank, the echo of bemusement pinching at his eyebrows; of course he'd heard his teeth grind. Probably wondering what the hell Frank's problem is.

Frank's wondering that, too.

“Sorry,” Red murmurs, apropos of nothing, and ducks away to drift towards the couch, Foggy's hand hanging outstretched in the air for a moment as though reaching after him, his smile flickering as his ever-present undercurrent of worry threatens to break through.

Karen shakes her head and smooths her hair and then her skirt, clearing her throat and pointing awkwardly towards the kitchen with a matched set of finger guns and a click of the tongue before subsequently following her own lead and going to retrieve the food.

Frank steers Foggy, still hanging around his neck, to the couch as well, nudges him down. Red stands for a bit longer, clearly torn between trying to liberate his armchair from Frank's laptop and letting it slide. He finally sits his indecisive ass down next to Foggy as Karen kicks the fridge shut and bustles over to set the veggie tray on the coffee table, pulling his legs in tight to give her more room.

“I thought... this'd be more casual?” Karen half-asks, gesturing to the tray of raw produce arrayed around a veritable pond of ranch dressing. They all take a moment to respectfully consider the vegetables and then as one just as respectfully dismiss them. The background jazz devolves into a soft, unbroken succession of crashing, the endless, silvery shivering of an interminably prolonged cymbals solo. Karen screws up her face, stares down at her wildly unpopular veggie tray, and with a chagrined grimace mutters to herself, “...Yeah. Not going so hot.”

“I bring down the mood,” Red offers, and he's so flat of affect that it's hard to tell whether he's aiming for levity or not.

“It's not like that's your fault,” Foggy says, and he _is_ going for lighthearted but even Frank can tell that for once it's exactly the wrong thing to say. The words _But it_ is _my fault_ are practically buzzing in giant neon letters over Red's head in unsaid response.

“I, um. I also have some potato chips somewhere!” Karen rallies, wringing her hands, but she doesn't make any move to get them. Too nervous to leave, maybe. “Or we could make some actual food. Like, a meal? Dinner?”

“Those're good to have every now and then,” Foggy says, with a sidelong glance at Red which absolutely fails to even exist within the same dimensional realm as subtlety. So much for those cautious interrogation plans he and Karen had sketched out. “Meals. Made of food.”

Red doesn't react at all. Might not even be listening.

Frank starts jiggling on of his legs and resists the urge to start pacing. A meandering progression of cordial saxophone notes spills forth from the radio speakers, the cadence like that of an alternate, more flowing conversation, overheard.

“Frank and I made some grilled cheeses the other day, at my place,” Foggy says, forging desperately onward. “Added some sandwich meats and stuff. They turned out really great.”

“You mean a panini,” Red says. His voice is so soft, lips so still, that Frank almost misses it.

“Well, if you wanna be pedantic about it,” Foggy replies, brightening slightly at this sign of life and tipping over into Red so he can affectionately knock shoulders with him.

Red sways with the movement, letting Foggy draw him in but not expending any energy to either meet him halfway or to avoid him. “You add things to a grilled cheese, you have a grilled sandwich which happens to have cheese. A panini.”

“Yeah, you got me there, buddy,” Foggy says, dimming a few watts again as he concedes unnecessarily to Red's pointless insistence on semantics.

Red cocks his head, reading the room. Karen shifts, sidling closer to Frank's side until his restless leg rustles against her skirt and he stills; they both have their arms crossed. Foggy looks away, off into the dark expanse of the television screen. Red turns his head to the other side, birdlike. Reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose, lifting his glasses. Frank can just see that his eyes are shut beneath, his lashes fanned over shadows no less deep than when last he'd seen them.

“Sorry,” Red repeats, voice completely dull, now.

Karen and Foggy both hear it, share a glance. Frank huffs as he intercepts it, drops his eyes resentfully to the floor so Foggy can't hold his gaze the way he's trying to.

“I don't want you to be sorry,” says Karen, carefully.

Red suddenly _slams_ his fist against the tabletop and she flinches hard, Foggy likewise startling away, pushed by reflex into Frank's side. No one moves for a moment as Red straightens, thoughtfully flexing his hand and cradling it in the other as though to keep himself from lashing out again, face expressionless.

“Do I get to be sorry for that?” he asks.

“If you're trying to prove a point you're going to have be clearer about it or _actually_ break my table,” Karen snaps.

“I mean. Do I get to be sorry for things I do. For who I am. Am I even allowed to try and show remorse for who I am.”

“There's a difference between remorse and being a dick,” she says. “What is this even the fuck about?”

“Call it the quandary of living as a flawed being and being self-aware enough to regret it.”

Foggy laughs tiredly and falls forwards over his knees, rests his head in his hands.

“You... you don't have to be sorry for being you,” Karen insists.

“And if this is who I am?” Red says, waving towards the table as if it displays the sense memory of violence there for all to see.

“What you _do_ isn't who you _are,”_ Karen tries, flustered, now, the flush high on her cheeks and her body a tight line of tension along Frank's side.

The first side to lose their cool in a debate is always the losing one. Red, Frank's sure, knows this, and Red can't even muster up the wherewithal to give a shit, much less shout. One point to depression, it seems.

“If actions don't illustrate a person's character then what does?” Red says. States, rather. Detached and cerebral, like he's musing about human experience in a philosophy class and not winding them all into some nonsensical debate about whether or not he has their permission to be sorry for existing, and giving off not-so-slight hints which suggest he's toying with the idea of _making_ them give their permission should he not already have it.

“That's— you _know_ that's not what I meant,” Karen sputters.

Red shrugs, sags back into the couch, stretching out the long line of his throat as his face lifts up towards the ceiling, head lolling wearily on the backrest.

Frank hates the sight of his throat exposed like that, his body slack and slouching, open to any attack. Hates how it so effortlessly communicates how little Red even cares to protect himself in their presence, hates how his own mind leaps to razors rasping against jawlines, the edge of a blade sliding snug over the carotid artery, the taste of skin and the sound of breath hitching.

God. Not the time. Not the place. And for the foreseeable future, not the fucking person.

He presses into Karen's slight frame, her comforting solidity driving out the inarticulate wants ghosting through his head. She grabs his wrist in a snake-strike fumble, gripping fit to bruise, and it's only then that he realizes that he's clenching his fists hard enough to dig his nails into his own flesh and consciously relaxes them.

Foggy sighs, goes to lay back the same as Red. Inches nearer again, the couch cushions bowing under their weight and pressing them closer. Red doesn't pull away when Foggy places his head on Red's shoulder, nor when Foggy laces their fingers together.

After a moment Red's fingers twitch, and curl around Foggy's in turn.

“She means you don't have to be ashamed for taking up space,” Foggy whispers into Red's chest.

Red's Adam's apple bobs as he swallows thickly, but otherwise his demeanor stays as vacant as ever. “But I do, though. I don't know how not to.”

“Then if... that's a part of you, then that's okay. It doesn't make it right, or... or okay for you. But I mean. I don't think that about you. I'm always happy you're here. Even when I'm mad, or you make me sad, I... I wouldn't be able to face the world knowing there was a Matt-shaped space out there that was... that was emptied out. You got that?”

“No,” Red lies, his brow pinching and hand twitching around Foggy's as he does so. “Quite frankly, I'm not even sure what we're talking about.”

Foggy watches their hands for a long moment, the very picture of downcast mercy. “Yeah,” he eventually agrees. Just to let Red off the hook. “Nothing really makes sense, here.”

“That doesn't make talking any less important,” Karen says, the firmness back in her voice. “Whatever you have to say. Even if it doesn't make sense, I think it's better that you do say it. You're valid as you are.”

“Valid, huh?” Red says, actually smiling faintly.

 _“Valid,”_ Karen emphasizes.

“A nice sentiment. Kinda cliché, though, isn't it?”

Foggy jostles their joined hands in exasperation, says, “Man, lay off, we are _trying our best_ here and past school and job awareness sensitivity campaigns are _all we have_ to rely on.”

“Your sentiments are valid,” Red intones solemnly.

Foggy bumps him in retribution.

Red zeroes in on Frank when he makes the mistake of breathing out a chuckle, his head rolling towards him.

“You've been quiet, Frank,” he observes.

This is probably the moment when Frank should say something passive, pleasant. Something to keep the mood from souring again, what with this sudden, mysterious flip towards deescelation. So, quite to his own bemusement, that's what he does.

“I'm just soakin' in you bein' around. Puzzlin' it out. S'nice.”

“Nice?” Red echoes.

“Yeah, Red,” Frank says, falling back on a more combative tone, gruffly and aggressively teasing, to try and distance himself from his own admission. “What, that so hard to believe? That I can just feel like seein' you's nice?”

“Yeah, actually,” Red says, and Frank has to be careful not to grind his teeth again. “It's not... I know you're not lying. But.”

Therein lies the fucking crux of the matter. The mindset which keeps popping up again and again, the weight at Red's ankle, dragging him under. That silent _But I can't bring myself believe you._

Thus the outburst, the second-guessing and the testing.

He's waiting, resigned, for them to take it all back. Their promise of support, their understanding, their... their love. Waiting for his dread to be vindicated, for when he can finally give up without letting any of them down because they will have become tired of him, of dealing with him, they will have moved on and freed him from laboring under the restrictive yoke of their concern, their care. And in the meantime, while he's trying and failing to convince himself that they mean what they say when they comfort and encourage him, he's pushing their boundaries, dropping hints, seeing if he can bring about the inevitable after all, prove to himself that he's not paranoid for doubting.

It reminds Frank of the utter disbelief he'd felt at the sight of his family's blood on the grass, technicolor-bright red on green, the ravaged brain matter blown out of his daughter's skull, clumping gory and wet in the silky sweep of her long brown hair, the barrettes at her temples still clipped neatly in place. After he'd woken up he'd cherished an infinitesimal trace of that disbelief in the core of his furious heart, feeling it prick at him every time he was alone and things were still and quiet. How it'd sharpened into a needlepoint pain whenever Karen talked with him, this queasy, undead _yearning._ He'd just wanted that voice, that nagging _what-if_ to be proven _right,_ because the reality was _wrong,_ somehow, the alignment of the world inexplicably, ephemerally crooked.

But both of these stubborn, siren-call whispers, his grief-stricken nostalgia, Red's relentless self-defeatism, are the lies which their minds dress up as truths. Wolves decked out as sheep.

There's no way he knows of killing such suspicions. His still crop up sometimes like wistful specters in his dreams, and Red's, now... Red's aren't... his're something like a fucking _personality trait_ of his. Built-in. These aren't questions which can be so easily carved out of a man like so many malignant tumors.

And of any of them, it shouldn't be Frank who realizes this shit about Red first. He is not _equipped._ It really shouldn't be him.

Fuck, nothing should ever be up to him.

“You'll get there,” Frank says, lies, like an _idiot,_ spouting a sweet 'n soft kinda falsehood right after Red's reminded him he can tell whether it's the truth or not. But Red's the epitome of falsehood in and of himself, a walking oxymoron. A diviner of truth, a righteous, honest man who can't help but act out false prophecies, compelled over and over again to strive for the worst, in himself and in others, to hold the greatest faith in unfounded skepticism.

Red's face crumples, betrayed, but just as he makes to draw into himself Karen shoves Frank over to make room for herself on the couch. “Scooch over,” she demands, and there's a sort of chain reaction of rearrangement, Frank standing and reseating himself as Foggy shimmies over, pushing Red tightly into the armrest and releasing an _oomph_ as Karen throws herself back into the cushions, her remarkably hard, angular hipbone shoved sharply into Frank's, crowding him bodily up against Foggy in turn. It's a very snug fit.

“This couch is not nearly roomy enough for this,” Foggy complains, slightly short of breath.

“I could go,” Red suggests diffidently.

 _“Never,”_ Foggy declares, momentarily releasing Red's hand so as to hook their arms together and then grab his hand even more firmly with an emphatic little shake. “We are _chilling.”_

“Forever?” Red asks.

“Well. Until we wanna order something and have to get up,” Karen says. “That sounds okay with everyone, right? Matt?”

Red clenches his free hand against his knee, a flex of bruised knuckles, then lets go, curls his arm in to rest over his stomach with a soft, emotionless sigh, sinking deeper into the couch as the air leaves him. “Yeah, all right,” he says.

His breathing is very slow and shallow, but as all four of them sit there they begin to breathe in sync, Foggy stroking his thumb over Red's fingers in time to the deep rise and fall rhythm, their chests expanding on inhale, pushing arms and ribcages into each other like their bodies are trying to meld together, and then contracting on exhale, relaxing a little more and falling a little closer each time, an endless, oceanic pulse of connection flowing through them as artfully wandering piano notes drift soothingly around the living room, accompanied by a low, smoky female voice crooning some painfully apt, poetic pap about love.

 

~~~

 

“I don't want to fuck this up,” Matt says, flat on his back on the cool cement so as not to disturb the warm, purring weight of Nina, dozing on his chest in a regal little bundle, facing him with her paws tucked neatly beneath her. “But I think I already have. Or I will.” He'd fucking— he'd hit a _table._ To see how they'd react, if that was all it'd take. He hadn't been able to f— it was like he'd been on autopilot, as if he couldn't fucking _feel anything,_ and so it'd seemed reasonable. To just be an asshole, to act like he hadn't _given his word_ to _try_ not to just say _fuck everything._  He'd fucking _ruined it._

His breath hitches and he reins it in harshly, falls back into a meditative breathing technique to keep from scaring the as-yet unperturbed cat with his hysteria. The fur behind her ears is so fine that it catches on his callouses as he skims over her shape, mapping her out, and he cups a hand gently over the steep, delicate curve of her spine, resisting the urge to crush her to his chest to gentle the terrible tenderness slavering in him like a starving thing. The patch of skin Foggy's thumb had rubbed over still tingles.

Nina is, again, a welcome anchor, soft and heavy and undemanding enough to hold him in the present. Tangible, alive. The same way the other three felt to him, when they were squeezed together on Karen's uncomfortable couch, listening to jazz, ignoring the sour pall he'd brought down over everybody from the moment he stepped foot in her apartment.

For a while, there, he'd fooled himself into thinking that everything was okay.

They can't have forgiven him so easily. It wouldn't be right for them to let this slide.

“How'll you know if you've fucked it up?” Melvin asks, from all the way on the other end of the workshop. He's leaning against his workbench and courteously not looking in Matt's direction, careful not to accidentally catch a glimpse of his face.

“I—” Matt starts, and then he stops himself, trying to force his hyperbolic thoughts back in order as he had his breath. Tries to assess things objectively.

What would be the absolute sign of failure? Concrete, clear-cut. Independent of his own atrocious judgment.

“They'll tell me.”

“So if they tell you, then you'll know,” Melvin concludes. “But they haven't yet, so you're fine.”

Matt lets loose an ugly laugh, again stifling himself for Nina's sake as her tail begins to flick in reproach. Even if he manages to keep from purposely sabotaging things it'll still just turn out to be a matter of time, then. A waiting game.

He sucks at those.

 

 

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: smoking; a character mentioning Prozac as they crack a joke about their own depression (in a shocking twist, this time it turns out to Not Be Matt); and a very brief derogatory comment which is made by an asshole OC which has racist and ableist implications. Also: ill-thought-out violence. 
> 
> So I was wondering what the frick the OT4 ship name be? AvocadoKastle, anyone? I vote AvocadoKastle bc that is the absolute best and catchiest thing I could possibly come up with besides just actually shoving all their names together in, like, the randomest of all possible orders. MattFrankFoggyKaren? Which is... actually, that might be better, Idk. THOUGHTS?

Melvin convinces him to take the workroom cot for the night, shielded from the room at large by several racks of clothing, the table Matt prefers to sit on, and a couple busts in various states of dress. Well, Melvin doesn't so much convince Matt as he says Matt is welcome to it, if he wants, and anyways he might as well go lie down there instead of the floor while he decides. So he does so, carrying the cat along with him as he relocates to the sheltered little den-like back area while Melvin tidies up, putting away half-assembled projects and fabrics and locking away tools so Nina can't get into anything.

Resting somewhere more comfortable than the floor or a snowy rooftop for a bit isn't taking advantage. Not when it's spare, stale space, unused and freely offered. Just for a time. Just for one night.

The cold will still be waiting.

Matt curls on his side towards the wall so he can better pretend to be asleep when Melvin later very carefully tiptoes over from the mini-fridge and places a turkey and provolone sandwich in a Ziploc bag beside the veritable sack of leftovers Karen had foisted on him earlier. He retreats very quickly after giving the sandwich a little pat as if to be sure it was nicely in place, heart pounding like sneaking up to Matt was enough to scare him, and he remains likewise stressed at the creaking of the rickety back staircase which he climbs to retire to his upstairs apartment, leaving the ground-level door ajar so Nina can come and go as she pleases even as it allows out the squeaky orchestra of the stairs' strident protestations at each ginger but unavoidably weighted step.

It's not until he's long gone that Matt allows himself to roll onto his back on the thin foam pallet, even though hiding his face from Melvin feels more and more like a formality than a necessity at this point.

It— this agreement, companionship, whatever it is— wouldn't work, though, if Melvin knew who he really was. Knew his face, or the ins and outs and failings of his private identity. Right now Melvin was aware of just enough to be safe. Both safe from Matt's enemies, and safe from... Matt himself, the likelihood of Matt disappointing him. And therefore safe _for_ Matt.

He wonders, as he drifts off, if the sort of relationship he thinks he's forming with Melvin is how other people experience friendship. Casual but meaningful, not so fraught with fear and hope and expectation. If Matt can keep it this way, somehow, despite himself and the fierce quicksand attachment he feels himself slipping into, or if he'll again give too much of himself away, too soon, and have to sever it before it gets out of control, amputate and cauterize.

He could keep his wholehearted desperation in control long enough with Foggy to construct a shambling simulacrum of the sane and the ordinary, hide it within as the cracks of strain kept deepening, lengthening, until eventually they found their quiet breaking point. Same with Karen. He'd failed utterly with Elektra, had felt himself subsumed from the moment he'd heard her draw breath, oxygen into an inferno, and Frank... he and Frank had started out shattered, trying to shove their broken edges together like weaponized puzzle pieces.

Claire, perhaps, was the closest he'd ever been able to get to someone without it blowing up in both their faces at some point. Possibly because she was the most practical, levelheaded, no-nonsense person he'd ever met, good at dragging understanding and communication out of him, able to set boundaries and enforce them or reach out to him and pull him back from a dumb mistake as needed, able to take Matt's unpredictability and wretched, needy idiosyncrasies in stride with no compromise to herself; an unsullied bastion.

And now there was Melvin. Others, too, whom he interacted with in a similar vein. Father Lantom. Brett, a little.

Nina, if cats count.

He doesn't know how to have, how to _sustain,_ normal, healthy friendships. He's not even sure if anything can even qualify as normal and healthy when it pertains to _him._

Amputate. Cauterize. Or wait for the infection to either heal or get so bad it'll fall off on its own, with no pesky, figurative blood poisoning to mess up the metaphor. On or off; it can't be had both ways.

Matt wakes up the next day predictably out of sorts and covered in cat hair, Nina trying to stick a slim, furry paw dusty with the sickly-sweet scent of chemically over-fragrant kitty litter into his mouth and Melvin still snoring upstairs... but he wakes up warm. A pleasant indulgence, but he shouldn't get used to it. Sustaining the gratitude for it leaves him exhausted and off-kilter.

After slipping on his glasses and brushing off his hopelessly wrinkled, slept-in suit to the best of his ability he reluctantly considers and then eats the sandwich, cheap spongy-soft bread and rubbery slivers of processed meat packing itself into the plaque-ridden crevices of his teeth. He folds like a weak hand of cards and gives a crumb of cheese to the mouthy cat as she twines insistently around his ankles, little enough, he hopes, so as not to rile her stomach. There are enough leftovers from Karen, he feels, to afford the loss of the sandwich as breakfast, though he regrets it almost immediately afterwards. Thinks, as he's folding the empty Ziploc and pocketing it, that he could've saved at least a quarter of it for later.

He considers looking for a pen and paper to leave a note, but besides having been reliably informed that his handwriting is among the most vaulted of atrocious chicken scratch it's likely that by the time he'd figure out what to say Melvin might already have woken up and made an appearance, rendering any such note moot.

Best not to linger. He leaves to wash up in a public restroom and then lurk in a discreet back-row pew for the duration of Sunday morning mass.

 

~~~

 

Sneakered footsteps jogging towards him, the tempo setting itself apart from the surrounding flow of light pedestrian traffic, a bass line to the crash and rustle of the flimsy plastic bag and the whining of the Styrofoam takeout containers swinging from his grip. A voice calling to him. Claire. “Matt, I knew I'd catch you here.”

“There's more than one Catholic church in Hell's Kitchen,” Matt doesn't-ask.

She reaches his side and slows to keep pace, shoving her hands deep into her coat pockets, a muffled rattling of keys and loose change and Mace, the muted tap of a fingernail against a nickel, the coarse slide of cloth over skin. It's not as warm as it was when Frank walked with him the other Sunday; the frost isn't melting anymore and it's overcast enough that Matt can barely sense the sunlight through the chill.

His own bare fingers are stiff and cold, wrapped as they are in thin, airless plastic, the others free yet equally clumsy around the cane, but it's more bothering that the cane's shaft is slightly crooked, bent out below one of the joints, subtly throwing off every tap. He doesn't know when it got bent. How it happened.

He can't replace it as easily now if he damages it further.

“I asked Foggy which one you usually frequented,” she says. “Thought I'd come by for an unofficial checkup, since you missed the scheduled one.”

Matt stutters to a full stop, bracing himself as his stomach drops. Claire stops, too, turns around as though she's confused as to why he'd halt in the middle of the sidewalk.

 _Shit,_ Matt thinks, very clearly and very calmly, as the surge of titanic emotion, something like rage or grief and yet neither, hits him, battering over him like a wave. He breathes, sharply in through his nose, slower out through his mouth, waiting for it to subside enough that he's not choking on it. _Shit. Shit shit_ shit. _“Fuck,”_ he hisses aloud, without meaning to. Just to cap it all off.

“Hey, it's okay,” Claire says. She's leaning in slightly, a hand out of her pocket to hover above his arm, giving him room to decide whether or not to press into it.

He doesn't.

And, God, that's probably the wrong fucking choice, isn't it? He's upsetting her. It's not about him but he's still reacted selfishly, somehow, _again,_ as he _always does_ no matter _how hard he tries._

Why the fuck can't he just _get it right_ for once.

“I forgot,” he croaks. His throat hurts and his eyes burn with shame. “I meant to make it. I'm sorry.”

“Hey, hey, Jesus, it _is_ _okay._ It's not like you broke a holy oath, Matt, calm down.” There's real worry, a pleading, in her tone. She's breached the inches and has laid her hand out against his shoulder after all, and she squeezes, grounding him, her head close to his bowed one.

He thinks that she might be able to see his eyes over the rims of his glasses, and shuts them tightly at the thought, hoping also to drive out the prickling of threatening tears, concentrates on smoothing out his knitted brow and clearing the thickness from his voice when he speaks. “I'm overreacting.” Again, not quite a question. He doesn't feel like he's overreacting, but he's been told he does, and sometimes it puts others at ease when he admits what they want to hear.

“Well, yeah,” she says, and he can sense that she's also trying to remain calm, her grip on his shoulder unsure and her heartbeat a bit elevated.

She draws in a breath to say something more when Matt hears a man, very clearly, say, “Fucking dog and blind pony show, sucking face.”

Claire's hand falls as he wrenches himself around, outside of her reach.

The man is walking in their direction, on the other side of the road. He's muttered it to himself. Local accent. Has his hoodie pulled over fine, straight, short hair against the temperature; felt-lined cloth rasping softly against the grain. There's a small switchblade in his right cargo pants pocket, enamel and metal and canvas, a half-empty travel-sized Jack Daniels bottle sloshing in his left, and the click of a couple solid rings on his fingers. Threat negligible. Acceptable target.

Matt's turmoil coalesces into something potently, pointedly actionable.

“Excuse me,” he calls loudly, beginning to walk.

“Matt?” Claire's behind him. She'll know to run if things get ugly. It'll be fine.

“Excuse me, sir, would you mind repeating that?”

Several passersby slow to take in the phenomenon of a blind man making a purposeful beeline across the street for a random dude seemingly minding his own business. A cluster of teens washes against a fire hydrant to form a knot in the current, milling a little in interest. Another guy in a suit checks one of them with his shoulder as he shoves impatiently past.

The man Matt's after is speeding up. He's made it past where Matt would have intercepted him; Matt has to curve his trajectory to catch up.

“Sir. Excuse me, but I believe you owe an apology. Sir.” Matt gets within range and whacks the man's ankle with his cane to get his attention.

He jumps at the hit, his hood falling away as he pivots in immediate, predictable ire, breath surprisingly not so laced with whiskey fumes as would perhaps be expected and stance likewise suggesting a pleasingly decent familiarity with self-defense.

“Sir,” Matt repeats, polite and insistent. He can feel the pulse of his own blood, rushing back to warm his fingertips, throbbing in his temples. Pressure. Wiring him all up like a bomb.

He's so. Angry.

“What? Fuck off,” the man says.

Matt props his cane up, close to his chest with both hands, the takeout bag bumping noisily as he edges into the guy's personal space one deliberate step at a time, posture demure, the menace tamped down. “I heard what you said,” Matt murmurs, all simpering velvet over claws, “and I'd like for you to make an apology.”

“The fuck? I don't need to do anything,” the guy snarls, but he's rapidly going from bemused and annoyed to deeply disturbed.

Matt had been across the street, after all. It wouldn't have been humanly possible for him, let alone anyone, to overhear.

Surely not.

“If not for me,” Matt says, Claire having followed too close behind him but still far enough away for him to push this, “then for my companion.” He steps forward again, and the guy takes a step back, giving ground. “You insulted her.”

There are many things which Matt can find it within himself to forgive. Insults to Claire are not any of them.

“Fuck you,” the guy says, and makes to shove Matt away.

Matt leans back and slides around the man to come up behind him, neatly avoiding a single touch, and again whacks him with the cane in the back of his knees to send him stumbling a little.

He carefully sets the cane and the takeout onto the sidewalk as the guy rights himself and rounds on him. They stand facing each other for a moment, Matt with his hands down at his sides as he waits, the other guy's breathing already ragged with outrage, the waft of fresh sweat tangy with adrenaline as they observe each other. Feet shuffle, pushing in front of Claire's sneakers as she works towards him while muttering a steady stream of venomous curses; the scene Matt's making has attracted a crowd.

“Who the fuck _are you,”_ the guy spits at Matt. Part fear, part resentful disbelief.

And Matt... stalls. His entire odds-and-ends being stuttering like a faulty engine.

So many ridiculous things get to him, manage to strike harpoon-deep through his laughably thin skin to hook into his guts, to lodge in his rotting, burning heart. This isn't any more ludicrous than the others, is it? Not any more tragically cliché, any more of a Byronic parody for a barely-person who only feels fully _real_ when he's indulging in the inferno of his fury and hidden by the night and by an armored disguise. Because that's what he is, isn't he? A person— or, more fittingly: a sloppy, sensitive, reactionary bundle of emotionality— who is in turn wholly, parasitically dependent on either an elusive, noble cause, or on other people's perceptions of himself. Of his _selves,_ of any of his disposable, situational, contradictory identities. All of them in some way an act, a fundamental untruth.

He's a shifting mask melded to a twisted, incorporeal face.

It doesn't matter that his mind immediately falls into some stupidly severe existential crisis the moment he's confronted with a shallow rhetorical query as to his own basic fucking identity, though. It does not matter. It can't.

Who the fuck _is_ he?

Currently, Matt supposes, he's an inopportunely distracted man who's just been punched in the chin.

The impact snaps him out of it and rocks him back, almost lays him out flat. As it is he bites his tongue, rattled incisors slicing with a bright, drooling flood of blood and saliva. He feels the iron wash over his teeth and dribble down his throat, and he chokes, sputters, spits it out as a viscous mess down his chin to slick and clot in his stubble and spatter onto one of his remaining two nice button-up shirts as he reels back. He finds himself grinning savagely at the taste, lets the familiar rage cloud out everything else and forces his numb hands from their reflexive flight to cover his injured mouth and into a boxer's guarded stance, head ducked, forearms up.

The guy is pressing his offense and rushing for him, quick and alert, already adapting his advance in preparation for a counterstrike from Matt's fists. Which is why Matt bypasses it all and kicks him in the ear.

The shock as the steep balletic sweep of his foot connects against his target jars his leg, his torso still inclined too far backwards, throwing off his execution and sending his best attempt at a graceful recovery spinning away. He hits the concrete hard on his side as the other man, dismayingly enough, lands squarely on top of the takeout bag with a light, squelched crunch and a burst of stale food scent from smashed containers of honey-glazed pork and congealed pineapple rice stir fry.

Clumsy. Fucking clumsy and _weak._ Almost losing on the side of the street in a straightforward one-on-one he'd instigated himself. Stick would be laughing with scorn if he'd been here, and rightly so.

He scrabbles for his cane and slides it out from under the limp, groaning bulk of the guy's body as Claire grabs him, hauls him upright. Her brisk voice is a hissing puff of heat against his skin, scalding and wet in the dry chill. “Get up, we're going, c'mon. Come on.”

Her hand is now cold, too, as she takes his and drags him into a run. It's all he can do to let her.

 

~~~

 

“No,” says Brett, immediately upon seeing Foggy comfortably installed in an ornate armchair and equipped with a steaming cup of tea across from Bess Mahoney in her charmingly cluttered, lace-trimmed, faintly smoke-wreathed sitting room.

“Yes?” says Foggy, quizzical.

“Be _nice_ to Franklin,” Bess admonishes mildly. “He's a _good_ boy and you need more _friends.”_

 _“Mom,”_ Brett groans, mostly, it would seem, at the “friends” part.

“No, no, Miz Mahoney, we are destined to remain rivals for life. 'Tis the cruel law of the land. Lawyer versus cop. No friendsies.”

“I agree with generally everything but the phrasing,” Brett seconds, putting away his accouterments and coming over to sit on the loveseat next to his mother. She's planted herself right in the middle and does not scoot over to make room, leaving Brett looking a little squished, but it's not nearly as bad as Foggy's four-way sitting fest with Matt and Karen and Frank the other night.

Or not nearly as good? It was a very nice time spent sitting. Cozy. Ten out of ten, would do again.

“Not to mention,” Foggy continues, “in the first grade Brett pushed me off the swing because I wouldn't give him his turn and I'm not sure how it'd be possible for us to move past something like that.”

“That was _you,”_ Brett exclaims indignantly. _“You_ pushed _me.”_

“Was it?” Foggy considers this for a moment. He _was_ a little swing-crazy as a kid, he supposes. And the memory _is_ kinda hazy. It checks out. “Sorry dude. My bad.”

“That's it? That's a terrible apology,” Brett says.

“See, he's still bitter. There are just too many hard feelings between us,” Foggy says sadly. “It would never work.”

“The hardest things in life are the most worth it,” Bess says, with an air of wisdom, chin raised, eyes half-lidded and fixed on some point off in the middle distance.

“But low-hanging fruit is still fruit,” says Foggy.

“There's no satisfaction to be had,” Bess intones, and takes a noisy sip from her delicate china teacup. Foggy's pretty sure she's spiked hers.

“Ooor, you can find all the satisfaction you need if you appreciate what you have, regardless of how hard it was to get,” Foggy argues enthusiastically. “It's more of an ambition versus—”

“Versus no ambition,” Bess interrupts. “Stag _nation.”_

“—versus a 'be grateful for what you have' mindset,” Foggy says. “Or like, you're espousing motivation and hardship as an indicator of value, but alternatively, I'm just saying that if you _do_ happen to run into good fortune or easy work, why not bask in it? Assign it the same value as if you _didn't_ have it fall into your lap.”

“Man, you're making a case for hakuna matata,” Brett says.

“I'm _just saying!”_

“No,” Bess says, wagging a knobbly finger towards Foggy, “I think Franklin's onto something I do agree with.” Her hand stills in concentration, swaying, and then flashes down to slap her knee with a startlingly loud _crack_ as it comes to her. _“Humility.”_ She points again, jabbing like she's trying to stab the air. _“There_ you have it. _Gratitude_ and _humility.”_

“An admirable combo,” Foggy concurs agreeably. “Reminds me of Matt.” Except that Matt chokes on anything which inspires gratitude; he's always so wary it'll turn out to be pity. Or maybe it's that he feels so sensitively, disproportionately duty-bound to nullify charity, to repay twofold, to _banish_ debts real or imagined the moment they crop up. It's never a give-and-take with him, just obstacles in his path.

“That boy doesn't shirk the hard work, neither,” Bess is saying approvingly. “Which is what really saves the day, is puttin' in an honest day's work.”

“And here we circle back to the ideological split,” Foggy says.

“They aren't mutually exclusive,” Bess insists stridently, leaning forward. “Just one's a sure thing, if slow and steady, and the other's stoppin' to smell the flowers, which is _nice_ and all but it ain't _reliable._ Ain't a _strategy.”_

“What if, hypothetically, you did have a strategy of hard work, but it was all for the purpose of being satisfied with what you had?”

“Well that's a snake eating its tail,” Bess says.

“An ouroboros!” Foggy interjects, probably way too proud of himself for knowing the right vocab word.

Bess nods and flaps a hand dismissively, impatient to get on with her point. “If you aren't happy with what you _have,_ then your so-called strategy should be to go out and get more! You can't _work_ to settle with what you ain't happy with. You either deal with it as is and _are_ satisfied or you _change shit.”_

“I love you,” Foggy confesses dramatically, because Bess Mahoney is amazing and holds answers to all the world's questions and it's really impossible not to. It's like a dim little light bulb went on above his head and he tries to make a note of it, save the gist of the hazy mini-epiphany for later.

“Or you get a scrip for Prozac,” says Brett, ignoring him. “Does wonders.”

“Mm,” Bess agrees, her head bobbing deeply up and down. She cups a hand to hide her mouth from Brett and whispers, “You shoulda seen him before. The saddest thing you ever saw, I swear.”

Brett appears as if he's going to take offense but then just ends up shrugging in rueful acknowledgment.

“That was that time in middle school, right?” Foggy asks.

“Worst of it,” Brett confirms.

 _“Middle school,”_ Foggy hisses darkly to himself. The tea scalds his tongue when he dares to slurp at it in sullen recollection and he redirects his baleful glare down into its clear brown depths, reaching over to pluck another individually wrapped sugar cube from the bowl on the coffee table.

Bess's expressive mouth pulls into a froglike frown of indifference as she likewise shrugs and reaches for the brown paper bag of cigars Foggy had set next to the tea tray.

“Oh my god,” Brett sighs, resigned, and shifts to stand up.

“No no no, wait!” Foggy cries, waving him back into his seat. “I actually wanted to ask you something.”

“Is it a favor?” Brett asks suspiciously.

“I mean... technically speaking?” says Foggy, meticulously unfolding the sugar cube wrapper by touch and casting his eyes thoughtfully towards the ceiling, stalling. “...Yes. Yes, of course it is.”

“When isn't it?” Brett says, sighing again, then adds, _“Nope,_ nah, rhetorical,” as Foggy opens his mouth to offer what would have been a dazzlingly incontrovertible rebuttal.

Foggy shuts his mouth, plops the cube into the tea, and starts stirring it busily, sugar grains scraping and dissolving beneath the chiming clatter of the little silver spoon.

“You gonna tell me, or should I guess?” Brett prods after a moment.

His mom chops off the end of her cigar with the mini guillotine she keeps on the side table between an ugly blue porcelain elephant and a framed photo of Brett as a very stern-looking baby in a bathtub with a hat of soapsuds.

“Well, it's none of my business,” Foggy prevaricates.

“Hah!” Bess says, amidst the clicks of her lighter. Her cheeks hollow as she sucks in to start an ember, the flame dipping in and licking wide around the truncated roll of tobacco, dried leaves and paper igniting with a faint, crackling hiss.

“But I've been curious. What've you heard about Daredevil, recently? Anything?”

“Well he ain't _dead,”_ says Bess, patting Brett's knee and venting her first long breath of rich, pungent smoke with the confidence of a dragon. It splays out like a reverse waterfall, a broad, smooth spray which curves up along the belled momentum of the exhalation and fades to a thin twilight gray as it disperses. “I'd've been informed. First.” _Pat._ “Thing.” _Pat._

Foggy discreetly coughs into his elbow by turning the maneuver into a casual dab.

“She's the captain of the Hell's Kitchen fan club,” Brett admits, like it pains him. He leans forward, his hand disappearing under the coffee table's frilly tablecloth. A moment later a hidden fan or air purifier or whatever whirs to life with an electronic hum. Foggy bats his eyelashes at him in relief.

“Started up a local Luke Cage chapter, too,” Bess says. “What with them slinging all their slander and poison thought he needed more support. Black man, good man, bulletproof, in _this_ country. _Inspiring._ A _role model.”_ She goes a little misty-eyed and punctuates this by pulling in another decisive lungfull.

“What about Frank Castle?” Foggy fails to keep himself from asking, directly against his better judgment.

“Who?”

“The Punisher, Mom. Shot everything up a bit back? _I_ was the one who _arrested_ him?”

“Oh, he can go choke,” she laughs derisively, and throws back the last of her alcoholic tea. “Got too many fans for his own good, he don't need me. I _have_ my priorities.”

Foggy hides a smile at Bess's summation of Frank's popularity, then the following grimace at the unavoidable implications of there being fans of the Punisher, and, by extension, of his methods.

Even if he's come to terms with Frank, and all that he is, Foggy still has enough of a head on his shoulders to keep in mind that Frank is a white man with a lot of guns who acts outside of the law by killing people he's deemed unworthy of living. Any way you look at it it's a loaded subject, and when divorced of personal context, when nuance and trauma is ignored and tragedy and rage are romanticized, the Punisher stands as the perfect example of a power fantasy whose reputation is just waiting to be assumed and abused. Hell, that was the problem Foggy initially, naïvely thought was best exemplified by _Daredevil,_ and _Matt,_ sensationalist media speculation to the contrary, didn't even _kill_ anyone.

Frank Castle, as the Punisher, is _not_ a role model, and he should _definitely_ _fucking not_ have fans, given that fans by definition may find what he's done inspiring. Not when this is real life, and real life involves mass shootings. Just. No.

Whereas Frank Castle, as Frank, is a private, fucked-up person, not a distant precedent rife with controversies and wider influence. A person. Someone who's suffered a lot, who's made his own choices and lives with them. Someone Foggy cares an awful lot about despite those choices.

God damn it.

Why does everyone in Foggy's life have to be problematic? Is God testing his compartmentalization skills? 'Cause if so God's gonna _lose._ Foggy _also_ has his priorities figured out, okay. So there.

“Daredevil quieted down for a while, a bit back,” Foggy prompts, getting himself back on track.

“You mean he was gone completely,” Brett says. He'd know for sure because Frank said he was there when he dragged Matt in for having the flu, but he's not trying to hint at that. Having helped the Daredevil get to a checkup instead of taking him in is probably not a good thing for a decorated police officer to go around blabbing about. “He's been easing back in to the scene, though.”

“Already,” Foggy grumbles mutinously, then hurries to distract from his slip-up with a more important follow-up question. “I was hoping you could keep me informed of any new Daredevil-related developments, like. Rumors, you know. New enemies. That sort of thing.”

Brett is giving him a long, considering look which is far too shrewd for comfort, eyes squinting like he's forcing something into focus. He leaves Foggy to hang a moment in awkward silence before seeing fit to answer. “There've been rumblings of heavy weapons suppliers comin' in. Violent crime's way down but arms smuggling's up, and what gangbangers are left are getting real jumpy. They're starting to stock up like they're preparing for something big even though no new blood's trickled in or tried to muscle any locals out since the Punisher scorched it all. As for the Devil specifically, his hours have gone sporadic. That's the most concerning thing I've been hearing 'bout the guy, from all sides. Unpredictability makes people nervous. Even if he's mostly sticking to the nighttime again. You know that for a while there he was out in daylight, letting any gawker with a camera or a gun within close enough range to take a shot, yeah?”

Bess pauses her truly impressive smokestack impression to announce, “I got all the clippings. Magazines, website printouts. It was a bonanza. Man's got a gorgeous ass. Nice sexy pout, too. Here.” She pushes herself to her feet and heads over to rummage in a drawer, then holds up her find: a giant glossy tabloid page of Matt's face, wearing the Daredevil helmet, surprisingly high resolution.

His jaw is sticking forward, mouth wet and agape and upper lip curled to show a pearly glimmer of teeth like he's panting or in pain, every hair of his stubble painstaking enhanced, every pore and scrape lovingly brought into contrast. There's an eyelash stuck to the pallid gleam of sweat along his cheekbone like a delicate garland of vulnerability upon ferocity and a blurry streak of light smeared along the mask's crimson eyepieces, the shadows deep and black and the light stark white and an air of suddenness about everything, as though a particularly lucky reporter had turned on their car's high beams and leaned out the window to take the picture.

It looks a Caravaggio. Or pornography. It looks noble and obscene and terrifyingly real, a good enough shot for any facial recognition to make an instant match.

The caption splashed above it arches in big, bold red letters of some old-timey comic book font, and it reads: _HERO UNHINGED?_

Brett is gauging Foggy's reaction, expression blank but for eyes again narrowed, and after a moment he looks away and nods to himself, very slightly, eyes now closing and a hand rising to rub at his forehead as if plagued by a surprise headache.

Foggy swallows with some difficulty, throat dry. “Oh, dear,” he says, lamely. “I. Hadn't seen that one, wow.”

“That ain't even the least of it,” Bess says, taking a pull of her cigar. She smacks her lips after she breathes out, as if dissatisfied with the taste. “At that rate he might as well've lined up for his mugshot. Good thing he realized and got it in his head to lay low for awhile, you ask me. Should be too smart to do dumb shit like that and get himself arrested.”

 _“Mom,”_ Brett says, pleadingly put-upon in his double capacity as both a son and a staid member of law enforcement.

“Fine. If he does get caught, _if,_ it'll be by my boy so he gets another promotion and the Daredevil is brought in without any new holes shot in him. _If.”_

“Thanks, Mom.”

She sets the tabloid down and glides over to pat Brett's head, condescendingly apologetic, and Foggy glimpses the flicker of an exasperated smile on Brett's lips as he leans into it.

“I gotta pin that one up on the board,” Bess muses after a moment, and flows away to retrieve the photo and disappear into a room around the corner, trailing a stream of smoke and the flapping of magazine pages.

“There's a clippings wall,” says Brett, by way of explanation.

“I want to see the wall,” says Foggy.

“You do not want to see the wall.”

“But the wall?”

“No wall's worth four hours out of your life,” Brett tells him firmly.

“Wall,” says Foggy one last time, because the word is starting to sound funny the more it's said.

“Why are we even friends?” Brett asks.

“We're not friends, remember? We're—”

“Do not,” says Brett.

“—frenemies,” Foggy finishes.

“Ugh,” says Brett. “I'll keep you posted on Daredevil intel. Stuff that isn't classified, anyway.”

“Thank you, frenemy mine,” Foggy says. His phone chirps and he slides it from his pocket on autopilot to check, just in case something's come up at work, but it's the burner, instead: a new message from Claire. Succinct and disastrous. _Matt picked a fight in his street clothes. Call me._

He gently replaces the phone in his pocket, breathes, and takes a sip of his over-sweetened tea.

It's gone cold.

 

 

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for a panic attack, vomiting, and self-directed ableist rhetoric concerning mental health. 
> 
> So Claire speaks Spanish, right? And she spoke Spanish with Santino before, right? And Matt does, right? And I don't, right? So like there're lines where I threw my hands up and went with italics and in-text acknowledgment of the language because it was either that or Google Translate and the inclusion of English translations in the end notes. And then I wrote a phone conversation in, which is also in italics. Because phone calls.
> 
> So like what I guess I'm saying is that Foggy is not speaking Spanish but if any of you guys do, feel free to either lend me a hand or ridicule me as you see fit.
> 
> PEACE OUT MY FRIENDS.

“I'm sorry,” Matt says to Claire, trailing behind her with the cane he'd thought bent before now twisted at such a sharp angle that it keeps catching on corners and feet and snagging against every crack in the sidewalk. He feels like a broken record. Like the repetition is wearing the groove out into something warped and crackled, a parody of its original power, but it's all he has to release any of the sickly regret and self-hatred stewing in him, the reservoir sinking a little deeper and wider with the passing of every Godforsaken day.

He picked a fight right after sitting through an entire Sunday sermon about turning the other cheek. If he wasn't ready to damn himself to Hell before he thinks having the gall to laugh at this self-made irony might do it.

He stumbles into to the negligible privacy of the nearest alley and lets go of her hand so he can brace himself against the wall, hold his tie to keep it from hanging in the way, and retch. Half-digested bread, turkey, and cheese splatter the ground, close enough to his shoes that he knows they'll stink of bile for at least a week. A couple more hacks and his stomach's blessedly empty again but the sick is thick in his nostrils as his panting turns to hyperventilation, his burned throat constricting, lungs shriveling in his chest around the physically painful beating of his racing heart, muscle and aorta clenching like a fist gripping tight to all his fear as he remembers the inane yet disproportionately wrenching loss of the leftovers, the missed appointment, the unblocked punch. The _who are you_. Stupid, all of it, but even as he thinks so he's going numb, shivering, as if the cold is radiating out from his very core.

Useless. Worthless. Selfish. Careless. Stupid. Weak. Nobody.

And other assorted synonyms for Matt Murdock.

Claire is rubbing his back, far enough away so as not to smother him, her face averted to pretend at preserving some scrap of his nonexistent dignity until he's done purging, but she starts to draw away to give him even more space as she recognizes his symptoms before he shakes his head, the motion sending his perception spinning, and, shuddering, presses the line of his spine back against her hand.

“This all right?” she asks, apparently just to be sure, and he nods again, chokes out an affirmative.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers, after another moment. He's not sure he's speaking loudly enough for her to hear him, has to form the words carefully with his bitten tongue. “I'm sorry.”

“Do you want me to call someone?” she asks, steady and soothing.

His breath hisses and stutters when he sets his incisors against his lower lip. “F— Foggy.” Foggy's seen Matt have an attack like this before, way back. Won't be as shocked as the others.

“I'm not leaving you, I'm right here,” she says, as she pulls out her phone. “I'm right here.”

 _I didn't ask you to be,_ he wants to say. _Fuck off,_ he wants to say. _Don't ever leave me,_ he wants to say. He says nothing. Works on slowing his pulse and breathing, centers it all in his abdomen and expands that space of calm to the rest of his body, bit by bit.

“He's not answering,” Claire relays as she cuts the dial tone short, the subsequent soft clicks of the burner phone's buttons beneath her thumbs. “I'm leaving a text.”

Matt feels himself slip a little before clawing back his self-enforced serenity. He's stopped trembling so much and the world has solidified enough that he can spread himself out, cast around for a distraction. There's a child, maybe five years old, playing with wooden blocks in a waiting room up the street. The wood, old and painted smooth, clops and clatters reassuringly as the kid stacks it up into the four walls of a roofless building, the churn of the spare blocks echoing dully in their plastic bin when the child digs around for just the right addition.

“It's fine,” he says. “I think it's passed.” The second surge of adrenaline is already flushing out of his system, leaving him drained and exhausted though the jittery electric crackle of anxiety is still darting in his veins, nibbling at his edges like hungry minnows seeking a way in.

What are those freshwater fish related to barracuda? Pike, he thinks. Swift and toothed and insidiously invasive.

“I thought I— thought I could shake it off, with the fight,” he says, and it's surprisingly hard, still, to keep his teeth from chattering, his words from slurring. The bitemark sliced into his tongue is still oozing more or less freely, the fast gummy clot of the scab breaking open at the slightest movement, too fresh and wet and the injury itself too deep for it to hold. The blood is starting to drown the acid taste of bile, cloyingly thick. “Or.”

Or what? He'd headed a first one off at the pass only to succumb to a different one barely minutes later? Either way there had been no reason for such a reaction. Much less reason for him to give in to it.

“I take it this wasn't your first panic attack?” Claire asks.

He laughs weakly, straightening. “No. But they aren't often.” He's managed to make it whole years without suffering one, in the past. He's usually more attuned to his body, if not his emotions; is generally able to tell when one's coming and avert it either by way of meditation, or by punching something, expending the buildup of energy as anger before it can reach critical mass by itself and turn on him. Exploding on his own terms, so to speak.

He does so often enough even without duress.

“Matt,” Claire says, and she gently tugs him around, draws him into a hug, he with the awkward length of his broken cane in one hand, her with the compact carapace of the flip phone clutched in hers. Her hair falls over his face when he tucks his head against her neck, smelling of vanilla shampoo, and her skin of the mild sweetness of coconut butter, and of a clean waft of baking soda and iodine and cotton, of freshly-sliced citrus and bell peppers.

“I don't want to go to them,” he murmurs, and in a quiet confession like this, held and supported and already displayed as pathetically as he ever is in front of her, a nerve exposed to the incurious weight of air by painstakingly peeled-back skin, he almost doesn't feel anguished admitting it. Almost; but anguish is by its definition extreme, in whatever capacity.

Yes, he'd promised them. He'd promised he'd return to them all they wanted. But how long until they realize they've invested in stock doomed to failure? How long until they turn on him, or until _he_ turns on _them?_ Hates them in a way he is unable, for once, to set aside? Bites the hand, instigates a beating.

He'd promised to _try._ He hadn't said for how long. Hadn't said that he'd keep going if _they_ were the ones to give up. He hadn't made _them_ promise to to do so, after all. They were apparently the “sane” ones here. The ones who get to dictate the terms, responsible and adult. Whereas they see _him_ as, what? Some petulant danger to himself, barely qualified to care for himself, barely deserving of agency. Someone in whom they're so unbelievably eager to foster dependency that they're practically tripping over themselves to lure him in and put him at ease and tie him down with all the gushing reassurances they can think of.

They're so insistently opposed to the idea that he doesn't deserve them. Maybe they're right. Maybe they're the undeserving ones.

“No offense, Matt, but the universe has been pretty straightforward in its hints that it's maybe better for you to go to them than to go it alone.”

A spark of that earlier fury rises in him, smoldering low and choking, and spills from his mouth before he can rein it in. “They don't really care. So why the fuck should I?”

Her arms tighten around him in a vice of surprise before she releases both him and her breath in an equally slow, deliberate exercise of mindfulness. He steps away as soon as there's slack enough, his reproach rapidly fading into the familiar fear; he doesn't want her to tell them. They can't know about this.

If they know they'll really leave him after all.

But isn't that what he wants? What the fuck _does_ he want? What do _they_ want?

What do they _want_ _of him?_

Claire begins to rub her hands together as though to warm them, but the friction she's producing isn't nearly adequate, the methodical motions too constrained. “What makes you think they don't care? Have they said something?” Concern, protectiveness, and a bit of premature anger on his behalf. The same shit Matt always inexplicably inspires, whenever he isn't eliciting eminently more fitting revulsion instead.

“No. I can just tell.” He gives what would have been a loose shrug had his shoulders not been so tense. “Call it a hunch.”

“Hunch” doesn't do the intensity of his misgivings justice, but his emotions always seem cataclysmic and he has nothing besides those feelings informing his viewpoint, anyways, so “hunch” fits about as well as anything. Maybe Claire will be able to understand with it framed in such a way, given that the first time she'd met him she'd helped him purely on the basis of mere hearsay and gut instinct. She might, just possibly, tell him he's right.

She's watching him intently, her eyes flicking only rarely in their sockets. Fixed on his face. He can't quite read her reaction beyond the concern despite how closely he's focusing on her, every obvious tell coolly suppressed as she considers him. When he starts to fiddle with the strap on his cane handle he hears the smooth, liquid clicks of her eyes shifting against her lids in the dry cold, presumably downwards, to his restless hands, and then up again.

“Matt,” she says, firm and even. “It's all right to trust them. They want to help.” Heartbeat indicates truth, or at least what she believes to be. Currently.

He clenches his jaw, winds the strap around his index and middle fingers until the blood flow is trapped there, barely, sluggishly pushing through past the second knuckles, holds it until they go a touch numb and puffy. Unwinds it, the intricate, flexible network of veins filling out in a rush and tingling all the way to the beds of his fingernails. “You don't get it,” he says.

“What don't I get?”

“You—” he waves an arm out, expansive and helpless and ultimately sullen. “I— I just _know,_ all right? You don't get it, they don't get it, but I do. I just _do.”_

“What don't we get, Matt?” she asks, relentlessly reasonable.

“I—” he stops briefly, disorganized thoughts flitting through his head. “They're acting like me. Trying to support a lost cause and not admitting that it is.”

“And acting like you is a bad thing? Because... your causes are all lost ones?”

“No,” he says, stung, because he's trying to use the logic they always apply to him against them, not have it turn around and bite him in the ass anyways no matter which way he tries to direct it. “I mean that they won't admit anything.”

“The way you won't?”

“I don't have anything to admit,” Matt says, again banishing the niggling doubt that he's being laughably hypocritical. “I just mean they _think_ I do, but _they're_ the ones hiding something.”

“Hiding what?”

She just keeps _asking,_ and the more he tries to explain the more he feels his argument crumbling around his ears because they can't actually be hiding the disgust he _knows_ they must harbor towards him; there would have been slip-ups for him to catch, conversations overheard. He has super-senses which preclude secrecy of any such magnitude in others, and he would have caught more than what could possibly be construed as a cutting undertone in a joke directed his way, more than a pause after he's asked a question which leaves him certain that he's fucked up and that they despise him before their blithe reply comes after all.

They can't actually be lying to him, are hiding absolutely nothing beyond being conduits in and of themselves for every single insecurity which makes him its home.

Unless.

Unless he's simply even worse at reading others than he thinks, or they're even better at playing him than he knows to guard against.

“I don't _know,”_ is what he says to Claire, harsh and desperate enough that he senses someone hesitate on the sidewalk outside the alley before seeing his cane and glasses and the circumspect distance he's maintaining between himself and Claire and moving on. “I don't know what.”

“Look,” she says. “Hear me out, here. Is it possible that there _isn't_ anything being hidden from you? That they really are trying their best to help, for no other reason than that they care about you and want you to be okay.”

Matt scoffs. “There's always something,” he says. “If not now, then eventually.”

“But maybe _not_ now,” she says. “You're maybe scared, all right? And you're getting a little paranoid.” There's a hitch in her breath which suggests that the “a little” was a last-millisecond addition but she pulls it off almost indiscernibly nonetheless.

“I'm not paranoid,” Matt protests.

“You have 'a hunch' that your friends don't give a damn, and _only_ a hunch, but until they admit it they must be hiding it. Or hiding something worse.”

 _“Exactly,”_ Matt agrees fervently, his need for validation outpacing the realization that she was paraphrasing him ironically. There is a pained moment of silence wherein they both await Claire's correction in chagrined resignation.

“Matt, that's— that's kind of paranoid,” Claire finally says, with another hesitation undercutting the pitying leniency of her modifier.

“Kind of,” he sighs, falling back onto empty concurrence as the last of his stamina abandons him. Deciding, in essence, to lie. Again.

As always.

Claire heaves a sigh as if girding herself, deep and soft and compassionate. When she exhales he can put together an image of her breath as it drifts along the air currents to reach him, is barely able to track the contrast of clouded steam and carbon dioxide as it billows out, satiny and incrementally denser in the thin, crisp chill as it swirls along the city draft to eventually mingle with his own, roiling like an insubstantial ghost of suffocation pillowed, discarded, melding, before his face, all of it easier to discern with such a great disparity of temperature. “I have something to say,” she says, “something I've been thinking over as a likelihood for a long time, and I want you to listen. Is that all right?”

Matt smooths his tie as he nods, reaching up to adjust the knot, synthetic silk catching on his callouses. Undoes his top shirt button. The blood all over and a bit below his collar is already drying, wrinkling and tightening the cloth in crusty splotches. It'll set. Leave a stain.

“I think you have it pretty damn hard. And you make it hard for people around you. You go back and forth between trusting too much and too little, caring too much about some things, too little about others. About yourself. Like you exist in extremes.”

He swallows thickly, his head ducked so his Adam's apple brushes uncomfortably against his loosened collar.

“But I don't think it's your fault, Matt. Not always. I think it's just another... problem you can't help but have.”

“Something inside me?” he says, fragile amusement papered over self-flagellation, over _born wrong, born evil. Born with the devil inside._

“Something called a personality disorder,” Claire says, and Matt flinches and tugs at the knot of his tie in surprise, holds his breath for a few seconds as he then fumblingly rips it away from his neck, causing his previously oxygen-deprived brain to go lightheaded, the ground beneath his feet and the rough alleyway walls all subtly tilting and swaying.

“I don't— there's nothing wrong with me,” he says, choking, stepping back from her, because it would be the worst sort of disingenuous to pounce upon this suggestion and cling to it like a drowning man to a raft of reeds. He isn't drowning. He can't take this proffered excuse and fold it over himself as a shield from culpability. His misdeeds don't stem from some sort of disorder. They can't. They're _his._ And he's _fine._

Well. He's a fucking piece of shit, but. Other than that.

 _He's_ fine.

“I don't mean it like that,” says Claire, but Matt interrupts her before she can complete her point.

“That's what a disorder _is._ It's a mental illness. I'm not sick, Claire.”

She sighs again, this time sharply, at the word “sick,” crosses her arms and then drops them. “Try this. What if, all those times you're blaming yourself for acting out, or feeling shitty, and you're saying to yourself 'there's no reason for me to behave this way, why am I like this?' What if you _did_ have an answer? What if there _is_ a reason?”

“I _know_ why I'm like this,” Matt says, stolidly ignoring the fact that he'd asked himself why he was such an asshole loser countless times before, and had in fact been doing precisely that barely more than a minute ago.

Claire stands still for so long, looking at him, that Matt almost begins to fidget.

“If you're so sure a devil is a part of you, drawing you off the right path, making you make your own life Hell,” she says, inexplicably and terrifyingly incisive, “why wouldn't your devil be a disorder?”

He opens his mouth. Shuts it.

Realizes that the sun must have finally broken through the clouds, weak rays of warmth reaching straight into the alley, alighting on the nape of his neck, his turned-out wrist, lessening the starkness of their humid breath but still too cold to threaten the frost or the modest banks of dirty snow piled in the sheltering shadows.

Another sigh, quietly regretful. Tired. The rustle of her coat and the scrape of her eyelashes rubbing against fine, thin, sleek skin as she drags a finger against a closed eyelid, stretching pliant, delicate layers of subcutaneous fat and gossamer muscle over slick, spherical collagen, pushing it back into the socket.

He remembers how as a kid he used to press the heels of his hands against his eyes until he'd seen phantom blossoms and sparks of color which lingered in his vision, how the the way watching the sun would imprint a dark spot, a localized, temporary blindness of royal purple and blue and bruise-black upon the retina, flipping to brilliant neon upon a blink, quickly fading. Wonders if being able to pinpoint these minutest of bodily sounds, these disturbingly, subversively intimate displays of expression manifesting within the physical system of the vividly gory, overwhelmingly complex human machine, is the direct opposite. Wonders if he'd still trade it in for the comforting tricks and illusions and shallow joys of superficial, unenlightened sight, when he can barely reach an understanding of others even when he's a walking, talking, breathing invasion of privacy, as he is now. His very existence so intrusive and yet so very fucking fallible he feels like a miasma. A dripping corruption, sliding away from any sense of self-containment or responsibility. From healing.

He swallows another thick mouthful of freshly-shed blood.

“I have an errand,” Claire says. “Please. Walk with me.”

 

~~~

 

He drifts in her wake all the way to the bodega near her apartment. The bell atop the door chimes brightly when they push into its warmth, the cramped aisles of cans and bags and boxes currently empty of other customers, and the kid behind the counter looks up from his phone to say, “Hola, Clai—” before trailing off in blatant shock, mouth agape and the flow of air from his throat breaking from an interrupted speech vowel into a sort of punched-out huff.

Recognition. He recognizes Matt.

“Hi, Santino,” Claire says, and switches fluidly to fluent Spanish. _“You remember our friend from the dumpster?”_

He's that kid from the night he met Claire. Had seen his face when Matt was dumb enough to lift his mask in a semi-exsanguinated haze and then pass out again before the kid had fetched Claire and helped her lug his unconscious ass into her apartment. Later helped _Matt_ and Claire lug an unconscious Russian mobster to the roof before making himself scarce and presumably flying under the radar from thereon out, Matt's secret safely kept to himself.

Santino laughs in disbelief, confounded surprise transmuting to giddiness, his high, curly ponytail sending the light chemicals of off-brand, ostensibly floral-scented hairspray wafting before the heavy heat blasting from the radiator behind him when he shakes his head, offsetting the pencil graphite and pen ink smudged on his fingers and the pleasant tingle of chili powder clinging to the hand-knitted wool of his homemade sweater, the weave lumpy and bare of tags or seams but lovingly crafted, the yarn sliding softly over the stiff vinyl of whatever spiky graphic design was printed onto the t-shirt he wore beneath. The spilled spices were about a day old beneath the minerals left over from the unfiltered tap water used to wash it out and leavened with mellow hints of baby powder, formula, cornmeal, and mashed banana: a young child in the family, a little sibling or cousin he maybe babysits while doing his homework. No, there's too much ink, a touch of acrylic paint caked beneath his nails, and a notebook and charcoals are squirreled beneath the counter along with the used textbooks; he's an artist as well as a high school student, his hands fittingly steady when he sets his phone down on the counter despite the racing of his pulse. “Sí,” he says. _“What's he doing here? Is that blood? He's bleeding, isn't he?”_

“Not much,” Matt mutters to himself, and Claire snorts and elbows him.

 _“He got into a scrape but he'll live without medical intervention this time,”_ she says, heading to the freezer section in the back. _“A bag of frozen peas isn't going to go amiss, though.”_

 _“I don't need anything,”_ Matt interjects, following Claire's lead both in direction and in language, steps squeaking on the linoleum. Feels like a jerk move to just ignore Santino's presence and pointedly continue in English, even if he's passing him by without a second thought to chase after Claire and Matt's best attempt at emulating her melodious accent is less than stellar.

Behind him, he senses Santino twitch in additional surprise at Matt's voice, leaning over beside the cash register to watch him with not-so-subtle intrigue and a touch of apprehension. First time he's seeing the cane and glasses, or hearing him talk more than a few growling monosyllables or gasps of pain. The blood spatters are probably not confidence-inspiring, either.

Matt catches Claire's arm as she's swinging the freezer door closed with a pneumatic hiss, the muffling thump of the rubber seal, the cut-off crinkling of plastic packaging stirred by changing pressure, and a final, desultory slap of stale, artificial cold which pales in comparison with that of the outside. “Why are we here?” he asks her, low, unable to keep the accusation from his tone.

“”It's the only place I know nearby which is open on Sundays and I needed groceries,” she says sensibly.

“And... Santino?”

“He works here, it's just a coincidence. Put these on your face. I'm going to buy them anyway.” The peas are unceremoniously shoved into his hands.

“I can tell where they've been and there's no way I'm placing them against my mouth,” says Matt, feeling rather waspish.

“Are you worried about Santino?” Claire asks, shifting gears as easily as she had between Spanish and English. “I wasn't sure he'd be here but I know him well enough that I figured it didn't matter if he was. He's a good kid.”

Claire must glance behind him at Santino because the kid straightens suddenly and looks away with a reedy whisper of air blown between puckered lips, like he's flirting with the idea of signaling his innocent indifference by way of whistling. “I know," Matt says. "If he was going to try and uncover my identity I think he would've tried to do so before we just happened to run into each other again by chance.” And the true damage was done far before this, anyways.

Claire got him off the sidewalk and out of the public eye. Took him somewhere familiar to her, where there was likely to be a person she trusts, and whom she knows can be trusted with Matt. She'd taken him where she was already planning on going. It only made sense that this would have occurred.

Despite all of this, it takes every last bit of regained emotional energy Matt's scraped together on the walk over for him to keep himself from feeling betrayed. He'd _followed_ her here, after all. He again has no one to blame but himself.

And it's not like he's going to ruin the kid's life just from stopping by the bodega where he works.

It's all right.

“Tell me, if something's wrong,” Claire says, and he dips his head in acquiescence. He thinks he'll be able to.

He always thinks that, before the dread curdles his communication skills and kills the right words dead in his mouth before they're even born.

Good Lord. He is just on a fucking _roll_ with the negativity today.

Another smack of refrigeration hits him as Claire retrieves a pair of tall soft drink cans and a pint of... milk? from behind a different door a bit away, and he actually flinches, pietistically appalled, when she promptly cracks the tab on one of the cans and passes it to him, the frozen peas relegated to being pinned against his chest with one hand as he accepts the drink automatically, the cane strap looped around his wrist with its crooked length dragging lackadaisically behind him before he can figure out a better alternative.

His fingers close around the instantly-sweating cylinder of aluminum and he takes in the whiff of aromatic moisture drifting sinuously from the cool depths of the container.

Ginger ale. To settle his stomach.

“Now you're just coddling me,” he says, biting back some prim comment criticizing the opening of goods prior to purchase.

She shrugs and snaps hers open as well, taking a smug slug right before her burner buzzes and then keeps buzzing with an incoming call. She swallows hastily and tucks the milk beneath one arm so as to answer it. “Foggy?”

 _“Yeah, it's me,”_ Foggy says. _“How's Matt? Is he there?”_

Matt's turns away and lifts the ginger ale up to hide the resentful pull of his battered mouth. The paper-thin metal edge of the hole cuts into the fresh bruising and the carbonation and the mild tang of the ginger stings his tongue when he sips at it, clumsily enough that he slops some down his puffy chin, re-wetting the dried blood and sending coagulated flakes dripping down to itch over the soft, more thickly stubbled flesh below his jaw. He must look a mess.

His stomach _does_ actually settle a little, though. Maybe.

“I don't think he feels up to talking, right now,” Claire says.

 _“What happened? Are you both okay? Were you there?”_ Questions blasting rapid-fire through the tinny speakers, Foggy's voice reduced to its shrillest aspects over the sub-par connection. Or maybe it's the frantic concern making Matt grit his teeth.

Speaking of which. He painfully curls his tongue before his incisors and sucks them clean of what blood he can, washes it down with another sullen gulp of ginger ale. What was that he'd said to Foggy, before, about blood between his teeth? Did this also count as ironic? As a self-fulfilling prophecy? It's funny either way, he supposes.

“Some asshole apparently muttered something unsavory. Matt walked over to him and picked a fight. It was just a couple blows, the whole exchange barely even lasted a few seconds. We're both fine. Matt's fine. He won.”

Matt scoffs and sets about chugging the rest of his drink. Even something so simple, something to do, steadies him. All he has to do is stand here and finish the can.

 _“He isn't hurt?”_ Foggy presses. It's odd, not being able to hear Foggy's heartbeat, his surroundings. Just a single, disembodied aspect of him. Like he only exists as a figment. An isolated facet, fractured.

“He bit his tongue, but—” Claire takes the phone from her ear to gesture him closer and he obediently opens his mouth for inspection, lets her set the backs of her fingers against his cheek to nudge him where she wants, firm and gentle.

A touch of blood rubs onto her upon contact, perhaps not even enough to be really seen but enough to be felt when wiped away, smearing stickily over the residue of coconut butter she uses to keep her skin from chapping what with how often her job requires her to wash and disinfect her hands. She releases him without noticing it.

“—it'll heal fine on its own,” she finishes.

The peas clatter and grate like so much gravel when he forgets he's holding them and makes to grab her elbow, halts with the bag of peas drooping sadly in his hand and the mangled, dangling cane angled awkwardly beneath. It gets her attention anyways.

“Don't tell him about the panic attack,” he murmurs, equal parts implacably declarative and imploring.

She pauses. Turns and takes a step back to press herself flush against him, the side of the milk carton bumping into his arm as hers slides into place beside his, and he relaxes against her at the wordless reassurance.

“We're all fine,” Claire repeats. “Just thought you guys should know what happened.”

“Ask—” Matt begins, on some thoughtless, morbid impulse, and then catches himself. Takes another swig of his ginger ale to shut himself up and buy a few precious moments where he can still reconsider and dismiss it all, the can light and hollow in his hand, already drained to the dregs by way of distraction. Wishes it'd been alcohol he was imbibing so he'd have something to blame for this idle, terrible decision. Then makes the plunge. “Please ask him if he'll research possible disorders.”

Her heartbeat does a little kick, and she leans more firmly against him. “Uh, Foggy. Would you mind researching personality disorders for Matt?”

A long stretch of silence, broken by an eventual indrawn breath. _“Sure, yeah, anything,”_ Foggy says, with a sort of intense neutrality, like he's being overly careful not to let loose a savage torrent of avid curiosity. _“But, uh. Anything in... particular?”_

Claire turns to face him, leaving an opening for Matt to protest, cautiously, mercifully offering him ample time before saying, “I'd start with borderline personality disorder.”

Matt thinks he's heard of it before, but. He might be confusing it with something else. Isn't sure. He doesn't know what this means.

He's not sure he wants to.

He's not sure why there's a trembling, awful hitch of hope climbing up his throat, thin and fragile as a fresh-sprouted shoot of grass.

 _“Yeah, I will, I'll get right on it,”_ Foggy says.

Matt crumples the empty can in his fist and breathes.

 

~~~

 

It turns out that Santino's been collecting some of the old canes Matt had been discarding every time he had to suddenly run to the roofs. It was kind of a hobby between him and his friends. They'd been meaning to donate them all if they reached a count of fifty without tracking down the owner or owners who'd lost them, and he senses Santino's abashed surprise at being asked to fetch one from the back room by Claire after she pays for her things, has to wave off an embarrassed apology for not realizing and getting one for him earlier as he's trading Santino the broken cane for an old one. Matt's not sure who's more flustered, right up until Claire nicks a napkin from the coffee station for him to wipe some of the blood from his face and he categorically concludes it to be himself.

Claire hugs him again before they part ways outside, strong and warm, lifting herself up on her toes so she can hook her chin over his shoulder.

She tells him she's proud.

 

 

 

 


End file.
